I watched a programme on television yesterday about the International Mathematical Olympiad. 6 students per country enter per year.
Anywhos, the questions are apparently derived from things you study in secondary school (ie GCSE, A-level, IB) and the competition is closed to anyone over 20 or anyone whos studied at uni.
Having only learnt of this competition yesterday I decided to look for some past questions...and &^%£% me! They're bloody difficult. Absolutely awfully hard. I don't understand how people coming from a secondary school background can do these questions. There is stuff there that IS NOT taught at secondary school.
Are IMO questions similar to what gets set at university level? Because if so, how the hell do these kids manage them? Sure fine practically all of them have autism, but they must have been specially trained from a very young age because there is so much stuff in the IMO questions that just isn't on an A-level syllabus. My dad has been doing maths for years, did it at uni, is a principal examiner for AQA, was an engineer, and he couldn't do the ones we looked at.
Anyone else a bit dumbfounded by the questions and also by what, effectively, the questions are being based on?