All About Math Olympiad Training & Questions

[Pen88n]

Thanks, Courage & Kiasiparent.


Finally see \"light\" for Q3.

It's great workout for my brain

[Tang]

Pen88n:

Let me try to get the answers:


1) Between 1 - 99, total # of digits 189 digits
Betweem 100 - 199, total # of digits 300
Between 200 - 299, total # of digits 300
Between 300 - 399, total # of digits 300

So you can see the 1000th digit falls within number \"370\" and it ends at digit 3.

2) From 1- 100, there are 19 numbers with digit 2 (10 from the \"20 - 29\" range and 1 each from the \"1 - 90 exclude 20+\" range)

For 200 - 299, there are 100 numbers with digit 2

From 1 - 1000, there are 100 + 9(19) = 271 numbers with digit 2.

From 1001 - 1999, there are 271 numbers with digit 2

From 2000 - 2009, there are 10 numbers with digit 2

From 1 - 2009, total 271+271+10 = 552 numbers with digit 2

3) 22+24+26+....+200 = 200(200+2)/2 = 20200

Please advise if answers are correct. Thanks

1)
1 to 9 --> 9 digits
10 to 99 --> 2 x 90 = 180 digits
100 to 299 --> 3 x 200 = 600 digits

1000 - 9 - 180 - 600 = 211 digits

211 / 3 = 70 r 1 --> So number from 300 to 369 and 3(70) is incomplete
Hence the digit is 3.

3)
(2 + 4 + .... 200) - (2 + 4 + ....20)
= (2+200)/2 x 100 - (2+20)/2 x 10
= 10100 - 110
= 9990

[mathzgenius]

Courage:

Need :?: for the following questions:


(1) If we write whole numbers starting from 1 to form a 1000-digit number N as follows: N=12345678910111213.... what is the unit digit of N?

(2) How many whole numbers from 1 to 2009 contain the digit \"2\"?

(3) Study the following pattern:

1=1: 1(1+1)/2=1
1+2=3; 2(2+1)/2=3
1+2+3=6; 3(3+1)/2=6
1+2+3+4=10; 4(4+1)/2=10
1+2+3+4+5=15; 5(5+1)/2=15

Find the value of 22+24+26+....+200.

TIA.

My answers for the questions are:

2)355

3)55

Please advise if the answers are correct. I can teach you how to work it out mentally.

* How do you solve Q1??

Please help. I don't quite get your workings. TIA

[Merlion]

> 3)55


How can 22+24+ … +200 equal to 55? No way.
We can simply use Gauss’s method, the answer is 9990.

[Tang]

Merlion:

> 3)55


How can 22+24+ .... +200 equal to 55? No way.
We can simply use Gauss's method, the answer is 9990.

(2 + 4 + ...... + 200) - (2 + 4 + ..... + 20)
= (2 + 200)/2 x 100 - (2 + 20)/2 x 10
= 10100 - 110
= 9990

[kidsjoy]

Maths Olympiad is hot here. Myself went through this training and loved it. Also it helped prepare me in logic and analysis that helps a lot in my higher education. But as said by some parents here, I am born to have a stronger mind in this type of analysis. Well, I am really weak in art . I did spent some time looking around, and I do not find lots of this type of training in Singapore. Looks like only the school themselves have these training. Anyway, still a long way for my kids.

[usaik]

Please pardon my ignorance. I was trying to look for maths enrichment class information for my P2 kiddo and happen to stumble into this thread. After browsing through the thread. I am still not very sure what is the purpose of Maths Olympiad?


What is the purpose of so many parents sending their kids for Maths Olympiad training?

Why is the objective of the Olympiad competition? What are the schools trying to achieve?
[quote]Maths Olympiad is hot here. Myself went through this training and loved it. Also it helped prepare me in logic and analysis that helps a lot in my higher education. But as said by some parents here, I am born to have a stronger mind in this type of analysis. ..[/quote] Hi Kidsjoy, you make the training sound fun..... can share whether it help to do well in the school Maths syllabus by attending this FUN training? THANKS!

[kidsjoy]

There are probably two main catagories in Olympic maths questions. One is more like higher level maths, in the sense that it is not just algebra and calculations. They start with a description of life problem, and students are required to translate the question into a calculation, then solve it. This translation part involves quite some skill sets but interesting. The other main one is logic analysis, more invlove some common logic thinking like if, then, what else. I say this is fun is because it is more like solving a puzzle, and most questions are closer to life and even written to catch kids’ interests, it is more fun.


I am not exactly sure about the normal syllabus, as my girl still in K1, but for sure it helps logic thinking skills that will benefit the students for life time. But if the student is already finding problem with normal maths, this is maybe too difficult. I understand that there are quite some these questions in gifted program exam and also PSLE maths paper, so looks like this is a trend.

[machiavelli]

As part of the ‘golden batch’ of NYPS that swept all the olympiads in 2004, I believe I can share some experiences primary olympiad students face.


The first competition of the year was the RI math competiton. The NYPS math teacher gave us past year papers to solve and picked the top 8. We had never saw this kind of problems before, so we rushed in blindly. In that sense, we had to rely on our wits to solve the questions (we knew gauss theorem, but that was it).

Our team of 8 ended up with the top 3 spots (I was 3rd) and 7 in the top 15, and this domination was preserved the whole year.

I did try IQ training and found it too easy. All those math ‘schools’ generally teach little tricks and try to impress little kids, but it can only go so far. I remember there was a Sakamoto world competition, where students from Sakamoto all over Asia were coming in to take part. I took part in it for fun and finished 2nd behind a Korean (and might have won if I remembered how many days there are in a month).

Perhaps training now has advanced, but in my opinion, what they can do is give familiarity with problems (its like a ten year series of olympiad kind of thing), but they cannot guarantee success.

Furthermore, in secondary school, the problems become much more varied and harder to ‘memorise’. Its there where talents emerge out of nowhere (no SMOPS or whatever, and finishing strongly in SMO, for instance) and those who really put in a lot of individual hard work shine.

So yeah, send your child for training if you want a platinum to beef the portfolio, but to really suceed in math, one needs a lot of talent, a lot of hard work, or both.

[wmd]

2009 AMC 8 Perfect Scores in Singapore:


grade First Name Last name school city state country
7 ALVIN TAN Hwa Chong Institution, HCI Singapore Singapore
7 MING EN CHO Hwa Chong Institution, HCI Singapore Singapore
8 WEI HENG BAY Hwa Chong Institution, HCI Singapore Singapore
8 JONATHAN ANG Nus HS of Math and Sci Singapore Singapore
8 ZHEN JIE LOW Nus HS of Math and Sci Singapore Singapore
6 GLENN EE JE HONG Open Section Singapore Singapore



Congratulations to them on their perfect scores on this year’s tough test!