You may be overthinking it a bit. Its less about learning new stuff and more about making sure you understand the "basics". AM-GM for instance might appear on bmo1 but would be expected for bmo2 ... but saying that the actual result is fairly basic and the usual proofs of it are fairly simple (square, semicircle, binomial, pythagoras, ...) and more useful for (more advanced) olympiad questions. For instance, the 2023 hamilton paper
Q1 - is a fairly basic quotient/remainder/factors (mod arithmetic) question
Q2 - a bit of algebra and then factors (diophantine) and quadratic
Q3 - a "simple" inequality ...
Q4 - similar, thales ....

The olympiads are more about how you set up the problem in the first place, and think about how you can work out a solution, rather than expecting you to use advanced methods. I doubt the markers would comment on your method (and you may not use the more advanced stuff correctly), so Id honestly just practice on the hamilton (and maybe the maclaurin if youre getting full marks) to get a good score.

Yet that was a relatively accessible paper. Is this an approximate format of the Hamilton Olympiad papers?

Reply 63

mqb2766

21

Original post by π/2=Σk!/(2k+1)!!

Yet that was a relatively accessible paper. Is this an approximate format of the Hamilton Olympiad papers?

I simply picked it because it was the last one. Assuming youve qualified, why not work through the last ~5 years or so in the next month. I cant remember what was on them, but I doubt this years was that much different. If you get "bored" you could focus on hitting geometry if you found that topic harder / practice some maclaurin / do some of the mentoring sheets / ... Often the main difficulty is getting started with the question and working out which arguments you want to make so the problem solving side of things, rather than "new" maths.

Wbf making a ukmt camp/school (or not) is hardly a deal breaker. There are a lot of books you can work through and simlar papers/competitions from other countries to practice on etc.

Reply 64

taje

Original post by Muttley79

As far as I am aware they are breaking copyright by posting papers. I am checking with UKMT whether they have permission. Dr Frost certainly does.

I doubt they would post the papers without permission especially if they explicitly state the following: "Questions from past maths challenge papers have been included in this course with permission from the UK Mathematics Trust and may not be copied or made available elsewhere except in accordance with their policy on the use of their intellectual property (which can be found*here)."

(edited 2 months ago)

Reply 65

mathsaurus1729

1

Original post by Muttley79

As far as I am aware they are breaking copyright by posting papers. I am checking with UKMT whether they have permission. Dr Frost certainly does.

Hi - I run the Mathsaurus website and was alerted to this post by a user of the website. I just came here to make it clear that I have been making free courses including UKMT questions since 2021 with the permission of UKMT. More than 20,000 students have now taken these totally free courses since it was agreed by the UKMT board. The agreement is a bit different than the one for Dr Frost Maths has I believe (though I have not seen the details) in that UKMT actively link to DFM, but as I understand it there are a number of people who have permission in a similar way to Mathsaurus who have permission but are not actively promoted or endorsed by the Trust.

The website also contains links to past papers (hosted at UKMT, not at Mathsaurus) and past paper boundary comparisons from previous years. Neither of these uses would be covered by copyright and this is the format most exam boards ask educational websites to use, but I'm open to doing it in another way if requested by UKMT.

I'm not much of a TSR user but happy to provide any further clarifications via Twitter or e-mail.

Reply 66

UndecisiveBoy

OP

11

Original post by mathsaurus1729

Hi - I run the Mathsaurus website and was alerted to this post by a user of the website. I just came here to make it clear that I have been making free courses including UKMT questions since 2021 with the permission of UKMT. More than 20,000 students have now taken these totally free courses since it was agreed by the UKMT board. The agreement is a bit different than the one for Dr Frost Maths has I believe (though I have not seen the details) in that UKMT actively link to DFM, but as I understand it there are a number of people who have permission in a similar way to Mathsaurus who have permission but are not actively promoted or endorsed by the Trust.

The website also contains links to past papers (hosted at UKMT, not at Mathsaurus) and past paper boundary comparisons from previous years. Neither of these uses would be covered by copyright and this is the format most exam boards ask educational websites to use, but I'm open to doing it in another way if requested by UKMT.

I'm not much of a TSR user but happy to provide any further clarifications via Twitter or e-mail.