UKMT Junior Kangaroo

Hi. I’m writing an article for school newspaper on the Junior challenges by UKMT. Can anyone help with some facts please. So if you get a Certificate of Merit in the Kangaroo - where does this sort of position you in comparison with everyone who took the JMC? So the top 25% of Kangaroo sitters get a merit. And the top 4% of all who sat JMC get into Kangaroo - (this is what I was told but correct me if I’m wrong) so a year 8 student who gets a certificate of merit is within the top …..% of those who took the JMC? Thanks - I’ve been asked to include this figure but I’m not sure.

Reply 1

mqb2766

21

Original post by Mathsy1

Hi. I’m writing an article for school newspaper on the Junior challenges by UKMT. Can anyone help with some facts please. So if you get a Certificate of Merit in the Kangaroo - where does this sort of position you in comparison with everyone who took the JMC? So the top 25% of Kangaroo sitters get a merit. And the top 4% of all who sat JMC get into Kangaroo - (this is what I was told but correct me if I’m wrong) so a year 8 student who gets a certificate of merit is within the top …..% of those who took the JMC? Thanks - I’ve been asked to include this figure but I’m not sure.

From https://www.ukmt.org.uk/jmc, https://www.ukmt.org.uk/jkang and a quick google.
Around 250k take the JMC, ~10k go onto the kangaroo (~4%) and 1.2k go onto the olympiad (~0.5%). A kagaroo merit is top 25%, so on average a kangaroo merit would be ranked ~99 (out of 100) of people taking the jmc. The other (half) person who scores better would have done the olympiad.
Perhaps more accurately a kangaroo merit would reflect a ranking in the interval
[98.5%,99.5%].

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

Mathsy1

OP

1

Original post by mqb2766

From https://www.ukmt.org.uk/jmc, https://www.ukmt.org.uk/jkang and a quick google.
Around 250k take the JMC, ~10k go onto the kangaroo (~4%) and 1.2k go onto the olympiad (~0.5%). A kagaroo merit is top 25%, so on average a kangaroo merit would be ranked ~99 (out of 100) of people taking the jmc. The other (half) person who scores better would have done the olympiad.
Perhaps more accurately a kangaroo merit would reflect a ranking in the interval
[98.5%,99.5%].

Thanks that really helps. So it really is that high? - between 0.5 and 1.5? Thats really amazing! I got extremely confused with all the %ages. Thanks

Reply 3

mqb2766

21

Original post by Mathsy1

Thanks that really helps. So it really is that high? - between 0.5 and 1.5? Thats really amazing! I got extremely confused with all the %ages. Thanks

Yes, though like all assessments, the ranking/placements need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Another way of looking at it is if 125K kids take it in each year group (typically both y7&8 take jmc so 250k in total), out of a rough total of 750k kids in the uk (each year group) and an average high school has ~200 kids (each year group). So roughly 60 take the JMC per school (y7&8) and on average, you'd expect 1 of those 60 to be ~kanagaroo merit/olympiad.

Another way of looking at it is there are ~5k high schools in the uk, so if ~3.5k get kangaroo merit/olympiad, there is again about 1 per school.

Im sure these figures could be made more precise, and some schools put more effort into supporting/promoting the challenges etc, but if there is a reasonable chance that one student gets kangaroo merit/olympiad per school, its perhaps less surprising?

(edited 1 year ago)

UKMT Junior Kangaroo

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