Maths Olympiad Tuition Singapore
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What is Olympiad Maths?
The International Mathematical Olympiad (IWO) is an annual math competition for high school students. It is the oldest international science Olympiad. The first IWO was held in 1959 in Romania. Since then it has been held every year except in 1980. Around 100 countries send a team consisting of a maximum of six students, one team leader, one deputy team leader, and any observers. Every year around 600 students meet to solve the six maths problems as well as possible.
Although it started as a tournament for Eastern Bloc countries, the competition has evolved over the years to the peak of mathematics competitions with participants from over 100 countries. It has become a very prestigious event in the math world.
Competition
The competition consists of two competition days of 4.5 hours each, each with three exercises. Seven points can be achieved for each problem. The maximum score is therefore 42 points. The assignments deal with various topics in mathematics. The subjects are geometry, number theory, algebra, and combinatorics. They do not require higher mathematics, but solving them requires exceptional mathematical skills.
Any participating country, except the country where it is organized, may propose problems to a committee. This committee selects about thirty problems from this, which is called the shortlist. The team leaders from each country arrive at the IWO a little earlier to select six problems from the shortlist for the competition. Because the team leaders know the exercises in advance, they are kept separate from the participants until the second match day is over. The teams are until that moment supervised by the deputy team leader.
The selection is made in the Netherlands by the Dutch Mathematical Olympiad and in Flanders by the Flemish Mathematical Olympiad.
Participants
The Bangladesh team from 2009
A team consists of at most six participants. These participants must be younger than twenty and must not have studied at a university. Participants may participate multiple times.
The national Mathematical Olympiad organization determines which participants will be sent. In the Netherlands and Flanders, respectively, the Dutch Mathematical Olympiad and the Flemish Mathematical Olympiad.
The number of participants often depends on the budget of the national organization. Although the costs are paid on the spot by the host country, the travel costs must be paid by the participating country.
Medals
Scores and medals are given to participants individually.
- The number of medals that are awarded is approximately half the number of participants. The intention is to have this number just under half the number of participants, but sometimes it is slightly higher, as happened in 2006.
- The minimum scores that you need to get a gold, silver or bronze medal are chosen so that the ratio of the number of medals is around 1: 2: 3.
- Participants who do not receive a medal, but who solve a problem completely, and therefore receive seven points, receive an honorable mention.
Special prizes can be awarded for solutions with an extremely high elegance or that give a generalization of the problem. This happened the last times in 2005, 1995 and 1988, and more often in the early 80s.
Editions
The first edition of the competition was held in Romania in 1959. In the following years, the IWO took place in Eastern European countries. In 1976 the IWO was organized for the first time outside the Eastern bloc, in Austria. The IWO was not organized in 1980 because the host country Mongolia was embroiled in internal riots.
In recent years, the IWO has been organized in Bremen (2008), Madrid (2009) and Astana (2010). The International Mathematical Olympiad 2011 took place between 12 and 24 July in Amsterdam (and Eindhoven). It was the first time in history that the Netherlands was the host country of the competition. Buenos Aires hosted the IWO in 2012, followed by Santa Marta (2013), Cape Town (2014), Chiang Mai (2015), Hong Kong (2016), Rio de Janeiro (2017), Romania (2018) and Bath (2019). Upcoming editions will be held in Sant Petersburg (2020) and in Washington DC (2021).
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