UKMT Thread- 2018/2019

If I get 100+ I will eat a lemon

Pretty stressed about MOG tomorrow- and not sure where the optimal point is between spending time on studying and spending time on sleeping. Have a feeling I'm going to be disappointed in my results and keep setting the bar lower and lower. Probably just overthinking things.

The MOG isn't meant to be sat until the 2nd October though? Are you sure your school has the dates right?

Also don't worry about it, the most important thing is to actually sleep before the exam. It's not a test of theory, it's a test of problem solving.

also mathematical olympiad for girls tomorrow, anyways can someone help explain the answer to Q5 2016 MOG paper it's about IMC or higher level idk? what is proof of inductio and how is it used

Didn't sit it last year, but I've done the papers from 2014 to the present, and this year's the only paper that I could answer all the questions fully and somewhat satisfactorily on. Q1 and Q2 were incredibly straightforward (though my Q2 diagram was most certainly not to scale), Q3 I found slightly difficult to explain 3D ideas in writing and diagrams (did three cross-sections to show the three floors), and Q5 was alright once I found a solution to part c. Q4 was the one that threw me- I feel like I didn't write/justify enough to get full marks. I put that 'there must be a chain of 97 houses that goes 'WYYWYYWYYW...YYW' in part B, but couldn't really explain why adequately. Wasn't sure on how to write a proof for something like that.

Definitely found most of it reassuringly easy and finished well within the time limit- but then again, that means that everyone else probably found it equally simple, so the thresholds will be higher.

Edit: Just found the solutions have been posted...

Edit 2: Oh no, I screwed up on Q5- I did all my workings under the assumption that by selecting a coin, the coin itself (plus its neighbours) would be turned over, not just its neighbours. Ah well, will probably get a couple of marks still.

Imagine quite a few people will get full marks and there'll be plenty of scores up in the 40's.

I'm in Year Ten so it's not the end of the world if I get lower than I was hoping.

Hope everyone else gets the results they're hoping for!

(though my Q2 diagram was most certainly not to scale)

I can see myself finding the correct answer to a question in the smc but accidentally marking in the wrong letter.

How could you draw it to scale if no units were given? Do you mean the angle? It's not too difficult to construct an angle of 120 degrees.

I can see myself finding the correct answer to a question in the smc but accidentally marking in the wrong letter.

I can see myself finding the correct answer to a question in the smc but accidentally marking in the wrong letter.

Marking in the letters can be more stressful than the exam itself. I hate it.

Yeah, my angle was more like a freehand 60 degrees, because if it'd been 120 degrees the triangle would have had to be fairly small and the circle fairly massive, which makes labelling the necessary parts a bit harder. (I did it like Diagram 1 in the solutions). Didn't consider anything sensical like only drawing part of the circle, oh no. I know (hope) it won't matter though.

If you think that's bad, in last year's STMC I managed to write the right numbers in the wrong boxes in the cross-number. I still don't know how we made it to the national finals having dropped 27 marks.