How to get into the Mathematics IMO team

I go to a normal state comprehensive in which I have been told that I am the best in my year at Maths. My school isn't bad but it isn't great. I plan on getting a GCSE at this school while trying to do well/ get noticed by people influential in Maths. One of the advantages of going to a state comprehensive is that I am allowed to do all the work that everyone else is doing in my school and all the better schools in the country but my teacher will give me some A-Level Maths stuff. At the moment I am integrating and differentiating with algebraic fractions. I guess this means that I am getting better at dealing with trickier work. I don't know if I will be able to do the actual qualifications early, but I can certainly do the work early. I.e. By year 11, I may not have an AS and A2 Level in Maths by I hope to be able to do all the work that is in the specs. It is the same with Further Maths AS and A2.

For 6th Form I am going to apply to the local grammar school that has fantastic Maths results, Oxbridge applications and generally have great opportunities to help you as they have some brilliant teachers teaching there. I hope this will help me with Maths and Physics Competitions and Cambridge application.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA XD XD XD

Anyway, I'd say that you should probably spend a bit less time than 6 hours a day. After all there are only so many BMO papers you can do. Of course, there are also thousands more problems on the internet around BMO level... Well you should try to balance your workload, makes sure you don't go overboard with too much maths.

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At the moment, I am doing about 2-3 hours a day on IMC and SMC Challenges. Now I'm getting frequent full marks on IMC and tried the SMC '15 paper and got 121 marks in it. Now I'm going to focus on my A-Level Maths and the follow-on Olmypiads with probably one or two more past papers on both Challenges. I may even try to do a BMO1 paper and once I get good at that, I hope to do a BMO2 paper. Hopefully this year I get to the IMC Olmpiad and the Summer School. Next year, I will have the same goal and may even try to do the SMC paper and get on the road to the BMO. Thank all for your feedback. I know if I have any queries, I can ask for your help.

If you got 121 you should try BMO1 this year, but you will have to pay to sit it. I assume you are from the UK. The more times the better. Even if you are 14/15.


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Hi,

Sorry for being incredibly late. I would love to do BMO2 this year but I didn't get my school to move quick enough to enter me for BMO1. Will this be a problem? Can I still sit BMO2 in January regardless of my lack of BMO1? I'll have a Christmas break over most of December and some of January which seems the perfect time to do some mathematical problem solving (i.e. BMO preparation). If they do allow me to sit the exam and I do somehow manage to get to the next round. (Very unlikely!) Will this mean that I would go to the Trinity Camp and be very close to reaching the actual IMO exam?

Thanks

Have a go at this year's BMO1 paper first. See how you do. As in, actually do the paper properly, with 3.5 hours, it'll be a good indicator of your level.You can pay to do BMO2, though I'm not actually sure if you have to have sat BMO1 or not. Email UKMT and find out.

UKMT have allowed me to sit the exam if I convince my school to pay the discretionary fee. Will you be sitting the exam as well? What do you think the best preparation is for the exam? Just past papers or is there anything else that I should be looking into?

Thanks

Ooh nice! Yeah, I will be. As usual, my best advice is to just do questions. 2 perfect questions should get you into trinity camp at your age (at least, it did last year).

UKMT have allowed me to sit the exam if I convince my school to pay the discretionary fee. Will you be sitting the exam as well? What do you think the best preparation is for the exam? Just past papers or is there anything else that I should be looking into?

Thanks

Do You know when we get the results for BMO1 , they mark them this weekend i think.


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Sunday evening for me hopefully Otherwise, I don't know. I saw someone mention Monday via email to schools? Good luck!

Im not too hopeful haha riding on a good score maybe to make it in round 2 to go into the leaderboards after some hard work. I am 75% sure i havent done enough to make the leaderboards. Still annoyed about Q3 lol!
Damn that is so soon! Will you get it earlier cause you went to trinity?


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Nah, I won't get it earlier as such. The soonest I will get it is when they update the website. They I guess BMO2 qualifiers will get it earlier cos UKMT will prioritise them.

Ah! Ill just wait to see the boundaries, i think realistically ive got 30-40 hoepfully near full Q2/5/6 bit annoying answering the hrdest ones haha!
Good luck !!but i wont be surprised to see your name joint at the top with the other geinuses really hope you make it to IMO honestly.


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Yup, they should be out relatively soon. BMO1 doesn't matter too much anyway, payment is still a valid option. Afterwards, payments become bribes...
Thanks! We'll see in a couple of days I feel like I've hit a bit of a wall though. I've done all of the easier shortlist questions, and now I have to move onto harder ones, and they are really hard Especially when lacking sleep lol.

Haha yh, How are you feeling after doing the Shortlist questiosn? Maybe try Balkan or the International Girls olympiad(it is easier I believe) and maybe the other small events stuff? Maybe look at the China and American papers 👀. dw ill start bugging u about BMO2 soon after my interview !


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Ah, of course, I've been meaning to do some balkan MO. Thanks for reminding me lol. Yeah, it's fine lol, I'll be doing BMO2 as well. I feel like I can get q1 and 4s consistently now. q2 and 5s are hit and miss, mostly miss tbh, it really depends what topic, and what specifically in that topic.

Thats around Bronze level then right? Ever got a problem 6?
What does it come down to? M, shear bbrilliance or where you can work and work and you wont get any better, i think a decent mathematician can work hard enough and get to BMO2 and get 20 ish(what im trying to do haha). Yh I got a IMO problem once, the easiest one ever from like 1959 it was like 3 lines lol.
It was like prove that (21n+4)/(14n+3) is irreducible.


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