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BMO Preparation 2017/18

Yeah, this is early, but sooner is better than later. Use this thread to do BMO1 and BMO2 preparation for the next year. Hopefully this thread will be helpful to everyone taking it. :biggrin:

Here is a spreadsheet with all the UKMT thresholds:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JuVy6_6T5BLCYySt0a1xQxdSdT-YPGokciNHaYMGPxc/edit?usp=sharing

(edited 6 years ago)

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Reply 1

tiny hobbit

I think that most people are more concerned about their AS and A2 exams at the moment!

Reply 2

Mathsman116

I'll try Q1 now and will do the rest tomorrow (if it's possible lol)

Reply 3

Mathsman116

I got full solutions to q1 and q4, haven't attempted 2 or 3 yet

Reply 4

Mathsman116

Yeah ok, how do you want to do that?

Reply 5

Mathsman116

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Reply 6

Mathsman116

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Reply 7

Mathsman116

There it is, sorry about the messy handwriting and algebra!

Reply 8

TheMightyBadger

Does anyone have any tips such as good books to prepare for it along with doing the past papers, as it is likely that I will invest some of the summer preparing for the SMC and BMO?

Reply 9

Mathsman116

Original post by TheMightyBadger

Does anyone have any tips such as good books to prepare for it along with doing the past papers, as it is likely that I will invest some of the summer preparing for the SMC and BMO?

The UKMT books are very good although they focus primarily on olympiads, not the challenges. How have you done in past competitions?

Reply 10

TheMightyBadger

Original post by Mathsman116

The UKMT books are very good although they focus primarily on olympiads, not the challenges. How have you done in past competitions?

Not incredibly well, because I hadn't gained such an interest in and passion for maths until recently, so I didn't take the challenges that seriously and didn't put much effort into them and preparation for them. However, I have been practicing for them lately and I improved my score from last year in the IMC by about 35-40 points, but unfortunately missed out on the Maclaurin by about 10-15 points because I misread some of the earlier questions and forgot that frogs have two feet. Despite this misfortune, I still got into the Pink Kangaroo and got 107 and I will do this years Maclaurin paper after my GCSEs to see how I could have done. Then I will probably spend some of the summer doing preparation for the SMC and BMO along with learning C2 for A level Maths (I can already do C1), so that I can spend more time in the first term of sixth form doing preparation rather than A level maths.

Reply 11

Mathsman116

Original post by TheMightyBadger

That's a good plan. Some BMO content is A level stuff (like binomial coefficients) so try to learn things like that first. 35-40 points is a big improvement though which is a good sign

Reply 12

Mathsman116

Nope but I'm interested to see it, which year was it?

Reply 13

Mathsman116

Fair enough lol. How did you manage to use calculus for that?

Reply 14

Mathsman116

On the whole, that's a really good solution! I think one potential problem is taking the sum to be 4 wlog because it only proves it for one case, but the later logical steps are reversible so it works. I'd say that's a 10!