Every year, high school students from all around the globe compete in the International Mathematics Olympiad in mathematics competition. In their home countries, the students who are selected to participate in the preliminary round must pass a number of screening examinations. These assessments are intended to identify the brightest brains (six students from each country) who will go on to represent their respective countries in the final round of competition. Most of this material will be geared for seventh-grade kids with little or no prior understanding of how to prepare for this competition and will be written in an informal style.
1.Understand why you’re doing it: To begin preparing for this challenge, you need to be fully certain in your mind as to the reasons for why you want to participate in it. Is it important to you to demonstrate to your parents or classmates that you are a genius? Or do you think it’s a fun way to see where you rank among others your own age all across the globe, regardless of where you live? Or it’s possible that you just like solving math problems and have a natural aptitude for tackling brain-teasing difficulties. Whatever your motive is, finding it out will be beneficial in the long term since the procedure is very demanding and time-consuming. The possibility of feeling demotivated as the pressure ultimately builds up in the final stage exists. Knowing why you are doing something can benefit you in the long term and will keep you going when you are faced with failure.
2.Know the syllabus whole-heartedly: Once you are clear about your why the next thing you should do is to know about the exam properly. They say the best way to win a game is to know the rules first and then you have to play better than other participating players. Similarly, go to the official international math Olympiad site and download the syllabus. Then for at least some days try to familiarise yourself with the nitty gritty of each topic of the exam.
- Start from the basics: Have you ever noticed that whenever any new building is being built, the first priority is given to the construction of the base. The stronger the base, the more resilient the building will be eventually. Similarly, you should have a strong foundation of grade 7 level mathematics concepts from your school curriculum. This simple step will give you an edge over other participants. After clearing your basics, you should focus on solving as many questions as you can from the books available in the market. There are many books available
in the market which gives you a compilation of question papers of previously held math Olympiad.
- Find a mentor: As you go from basic to moderate level in the preparation, you would face yourself particularly with two kinds of problems. The first problem is you would be unable to comprehend some conceptual material either from standard text books or reference books. The second problem you would encounter is that you would be unable to solve some problems on your own. In these types of circumstances, a mentor will be very useful. A mentor can be a senior who has already appeared in the Olympiad or your school teacher who can clear your doubts. The most significant part of having a mentor is it will continue your momentum and keep your frustration in check.
- Mock competition: As you go along with your preparation, there would come a time when you would feel that you may have acquired competence required for this contest. The best way to determine this is to have mock competition among your classmates. IMO Class 7 2016 Question Paper For this purpose, you can form a math Olympiad club where on a weekly basis you would test yourself among your other peers. Another thing you can do is go online and find a forum where this kind of competition is held regularly.
- Time management: This contest not only tests the complex mathematical problem-solving ability of the students but also it tests how fast and accurately one can solve the problems. One cannot merely achieve this by practicing casually. The speed and accuracy needed for this test can be achieved gradually if one practices problems with a specified amount of time with respect to a watch.
- Well thought out plan: If you are minutely reading this article, it should have been clear to you that this is more like a marathon rather than a sprint. So, you should have a time table which will help you manage your time and balance school homework and additional effort needed for this test. It would be good if you can make weekly and monthly goals and at the end of the month you can check if you were able to perform that task. This will definitely help you in the end and save you from the last-minute anxiety.
- Mental alertness: Hard work is must for an exam like this but only hard work would not yield you expected result. So, you should devote some time every day for physical exercise or at least you should walk sometimes in the park. The combination of physical and mental fitness would give you a sharp mental alertness which will help you during the test. Having a sound body and mind also ensure your emotional well being
which is very beneficial for a candidate.
- Day of the exam: All the above-mentioned tips will be useless if you cannot perform your best on the day of the test. You should have at least 8 hours of sleep on the D-day. First thing you should do on waking up is have a nutrition dense breakfast which will keep you energised the whole day. Don’t try to do anything new on the exam day. Just treat it like a mock exam and give your best- you would be all right. All the best for the future.