The Student Room Group

UKMT/BMOS thread 2020-2021

Hello all.
From what I could see no one has started a thread for next year's UKMT competitions so I took the liberty of doing so, in case anyone else wants to do some early practice over the summer. Below are provisional dates for the coming competitions; note that the UKMT has stated these may be subject to change. I will update them if and when this happens.
Dates of this year's Challenges:

Senior Maths Challenge- Thursday 5th Nov 2020
Intermediate Maths Challenge- Thursday 4th Feb 2021
Junior Maths Challenge- Thursday 29th April 2021

Dates of this year's follow-on rounds:

Senior Kangaroo- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round One- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round Two- Thursday 28th January 2021
Intermediate Kangaroo- Thursday 18th March 2021
Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad- Thursday 18th March 2021
Junior Kangaroo- Tuesday 15th June 2021
Junior Mathematical Olympiad- Tuesday 15th June 2021

UKMT Website-https://www.ukmt.org.uk/
(edited 3 years ago)

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Original post by 85254444
Hello all.
From what I could see no one has started a thread for next year's UKMT competitions so I took the liberty of doing so, in case anyone else wants to do some early practice over the summer. Below are provisional dates for the coming competitions; note that these have not been officially confirmed yet.

Dates of this year's Challenges:

Senior Maths Challenge- Thursday 5th Nov 2020
Intermediate Maths Challenge- Thursday 4th Feb 2021
Junior Maths Challenge- Thursday 29th April 2021

Dates of this year's follow-on rounds:

Senior Kangaroo- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round One- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round Two- Thursday 28th January 2021
Intermediate Kangaroo- Thursday 18th March 2021
Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad- Thursday 18th March 2021
Junior Kangaroo- Tuesday 15th June 2020
Junior Mathematical Olympiad- Tuesday 15th June 2020

UKMT Website- https://www.ukmt.org.uk/


I am currently collating a large list of good BMO resources, and will upload these when I have finished.

thanks mate
Reply 2
Original post by 85254444
Hello all.
From what I could see no one has started a thread for next year's UKMT competitions so I took the liberty of doing so, in case anyone else wants to do some early practice over the summer. Below are provisional dates for the coming competitions; note that these have not been officially confirmed yet.

Dates of this year's Challenges:

Senior Maths Challenge- Thursday 5th Nov 2020
Intermediate Maths Challenge- Thursday 4th Feb 2021
Junior Maths Challenge- Thursday 29th April 2021

Dates of this year's follow-on rounds:

Senior Kangaroo- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round One- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round Two- Thursday 28th January 2021
Intermediate Kangaroo- Thursday 18th March 2021
Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad- Thursday 18th March 2021
Junior Kangaroo- Tuesday 15th June 2020
Junior Mathematical Olympiad- Tuesday 15th June 2020

UKMT Website- https://www.ukmt.org.uk/


I am currently collating a large list of good BMO resources, and will upload these when I have finished if anyone is interested.


Looks good, but maybe edit the year for JK and JMO?
If anyone needs any guidance or advice, feel free to message me. I sat the SMC last year and BMO1 this January, getting gold and a distinction respectively. Whilst I doubt I am the highest scorer on here by any stretch, I'm quite happy to give any assistance to whomever needs it :smile:

Edit: Commenting may be better as then more people can benefit :smile:
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 4
Original post by mqb2766
Looks good, but maybe edit the year for JK and JMO?

Thanks lol.
Original post by 85254444
Hello all.
From what I could see no one has started a thread for next year's UKMT competitions so I took the liberty of doing so, in case anyone else wants to do some early practice over the summer. Below are provisional dates for the coming competitions; note that the UKMT has stated these may be subject to change. I will update them if and when this happens.
Dates of this year's Challenges:

Senior Maths Challenge- Thursday 5th Nov 2020
Intermediate Maths Challenge- Thursday 4th Feb 2021
Junior Maths Challenge- Thursday 29th April 2021

Dates of this year's follow-on rounds:

Senior Kangaroo- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round One- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round Two- Thursday 28th January 2021
Intermediate Kangaroo- Thursday 18th March 2021
Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad- Thursday 18th March 2021
Junior Kangaroo- Tuesday 15th June 2021
Junior Mathematical Olympiad- Tuesday 15th June 2021

UKMT Website- https://www.ukmt.org.uk/


I am currently collating a large list of good BMO resources, and will upload these when I have finished if anyone is interested.


Please note the UKMT are offering past papers free at the moment :smile:
Original post by robertgallacher
If anyone needs any guidance or advice, feel free to message me. I sat the SMC last year and BMO1 this January, getting gold and a distinction respectively. Whilst I doubt I am the highest scorer on here by any stretch, I'm quite happy to give any assistance to whomever needs it :smile:

Please edit - encourage comments on the thread NOT by PM which helps no-one else :smile:
Reply 7
Original post by 85254444
Hello all.
From what I could see no one has started a thread for next year's UKMT competitions so I took the liberty of doing so, in case anyone else wants to do some early practice over the summer. Below are provisional dates for the coming competitions; note that the UKMT has stated these may be subject to change. I will update them if and when this happens.
Dates of this year's Challenges:

Senior Maths Challenge- Thursday 5th Nov 2020
Intermediate Maths Challenge- Thursday 4th Feb 2021
Junior Maths Challenge- Thursday 29th April 2021

Dates of this year's follow-on rounds:

Senior Kangaroo- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round One- Thursday 26th November 2020
British Mathematical Olympiad Round Two- Thursday 28th January 2021
Intermediate Kangaroo- Thursday 18th March 2021
Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad- Thursday 18th March 2021
Junior Kangaroo- Tuesday 15th June 2021
Junior Mathematical Olympiad- Tuesday 15th June 2021

UKMT Website-https://www.ukmt.org.uk/

I am currently collating a large list of good BMO resources, and will upload these when I have finished if anyone is interested.


Hi, You'd better remove the ukmt papers etc unless you have permission. They're freely available from ukmt, so just point people there?
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by robertgallacher
If anyone needs any guidance or advice, feel free to message me. I sat the SMC last year and BMO1 this January, getting gold and a distinction respectively. Whilst I doubt I am the highest scorer on here by any stretch, I'm quite happy to give any assistance to whomever needs it :smile:

Edit: Commenting may be better as then more people can benefit :smile:

Well done but isn't BMO1 in like november or decmeber or something usually (before the new year)??
Original post by anujann6297
Well done but isn't BMO1 in like november or decmeber or something usually (before the new year)??

Yep it is, I was confusing it with the other Olympiads :/ (even though the other two I did were in like March so I don't know how I did that)
Can someone please explain the difference in approach to the papers above? I'm really stuck as to how to 'jump' up a level
Original post by loststarsatnight
Can someone please explain the difference in approach to the papers above? I'm really stuck as to how to 'jump' up a level

You're going to be doing A levels? Have you done IMC etc, if so how did you do?
The SMC is doable with gcse knowledge. BMO needs a bit more work, if you get through.
Right, so I can get full marks in the SMC, and I'm going into sixth form - some of the BMO questions are hard for me to understand, others are comfortable to do within half an hour but i tend to miss out one case/rule/exception.

I got to the Maclaurin olympiads this year, and did well enough to get a certificate, but missed out on the prize due to my proofs being incomplete.
Original post by loststarsatnight
Right, so I can get full marks in the SMC, and I'm going into sixth form - some of the BMO questions are hard for me to understand, others are comfortable to do within half an hour but i tend to miss out one case/rule/exception.

I got to the Maclaurin olympiads this year, and did well enough to get a certificate, but missed out on the prize due to my proofs being incomplete.

Have you got onto the mentoring scheme to see about improving proofs - you may be beyond it though? If you can do most of the BMO questions, you probably need a bit more focussed help than your original post implied. Are there any sort of questions you find hard / how many past papers have you done?
(edited 3 years ago)
Nope - I didn't get onto the mentoring scheme. I can do the most basic questions involving only gcse level concepts, so right now i'm focusing on learning more concepts (mods and functional equations). Honestly, the phrasing of my question was bad and what I meant to say was: is there a 'trick' to BMO questions, like scaling the question down, or just playing about with examples that I'm missing, or is it just brute force?
Original post by loststarsatnight
Nope - I didn't get onto the mentoring scheme. I can do the most basic questions involving only gcse level concepts, so right now i'm focusing on learning more concepts (mods and functional equations). Honestly, the phrasing of my question was bad and what I meant to say was: is there a 'trick' to BMO questions, like scaling the question down, or just playing about with examples that I'm missing, or is it just brute force?

For the BMO stuff there is a reasonable amount of extra number theory/geometry/... to learn
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=89686786
But as usual the best way is to practice. Siklos STEP book is good for emphasising the initial thinking about different ways to solve a problem.

Looking at a few of the solution videos would give you some idea whether you need to brush up on your knowledge base or improve your problem solving.
Original post by robertgallacher
If anyone needs any guidance or advice, feel free to message me. I sat the SMC last year and BMO1 this January, getting gold and a distinction respectively. Whilst I doubt I am the highest scorer on here by any stretch, I'm quite happy to give any assistance to whomever needs it :smile:

Edit: Commenting may be better as then more people can benefit :smile:

Hi!
Im currently in year 11 and want to practice SMC as I really wanna get a gold or above?
Any advice? How many papers should I be doing? Any books to buy? Also, are there in any 'tricks' for the questions? thanks :smile:
I’m doing the intermediate, got through to Olympiad every year getting merit, which I’d like to improve so that I can get distinction every year, but when my school does the mentoring scheme, it’s not challenging? They’ll invite students that just hit silver in the challenge, and do half an hour a week of past challenge questions that they get sent, which is not helping me at all. I always miss out on distinction by 1-2 points, and I’ll get full marks on maybe 2 long questions and 1-3 for a couple of other ones. Any ideas? I regularly do papers and self learn the GCSE and A-Level maths syllabus, does anyone else have any ideas to help?
Original post by loststarsatnight
Nope - I didn't get onto the mentoring scheme. I can do the most basic questions involving only gcse level concepts, so right now i'm focusing on learning more concepts (mods and functional equations). Honestly, the phrasing of my question was bad and what I meant to say was: is there a 'trick' to BMO questions, like scaling the question down, or just playing about with examples that I'm missing, or is it just brute force?


Honestly? The thing about it is creativity. You have to be able to do most of the syllabus content subconsciously, so that you can piece together a solution of your own. There’s no real trick, but a very deep understanding and ability to apply mathematical knowledge is key, and knowing how to think outside of the box.
Original post by vix.xvi
Hi!
Im currently in year 11 and want to practice SMC as I really wanna get a gold or above?
Any advice? How many papers should I be doing? Any books to buy? Also, are there in any 'tricks' for the questions? thanks :smile:


I wrote this on another post and it seems apt to put it here as a rough summary of where I'd recommend focusing your efforts:

Spoiler


Personally, I didn't do much for either specifically, which I sorta regret in a way, but I had done a lot of problem-solving maths generally. I think it would be useful to practice your algebraic manipulation and number theory, as they seemed useful in the few past papers that I did get round to doing, but I think working through past questions is pretty useful practice for BMO; and perhaps MAT past paper questions, especially the multiple-choice ones, for SMC

Edit: I just realised that you said you were in Year 11, not Year 12. I'm not too sure of which resources you are able to use - I wasn't particularly focused during my GCSEs, but I think there are problem-solving modules on NRICH, some of which are tailored to GCSE students (don't hold me to that though).
(edited 3 years ago)

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