UKMT Junior Maths Challenge

Hi,

I am in year 8 and I am doing the JMC and master year I did horrible so I was wondering anyone could advise me what topics to revise and how to revise and tips on how to handle questions in the JMC.

Any help with be appreciated.

Thanks,
A

Reply 1

BramleyTutor

Start with George Polya's How to Solve It.

About the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Solve_It

About the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Polya

Where to get it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Solve-Mathematical-Penguin-Science/dp/0140124993

Polya gives you a set of 'heuristics' ('rules of thumb') for tackling UKMT Challenge-type problems. The Wiki article on the book doesn't really do justice to it.

And: go to the UK Mathematics Trust website, and download their free past papers. You may also want to purchase some of their books.
https://ukmt.org.uk/competition-papers

Note to any maths tutors reading this: it might be useful, and fun, to start at thread devoted to mathematical problem-solving. We might start with a challenging -- but not TOO challenging -- problem, and talk our way through the mental processes we use to try to solve it. ('Draw a picture' ... 'Solve a related but simpler problem' ... 'Try to solve part of the problem' ... etc.)

Reply 2

mqb2766

Original post by A.acer

Hi,
I am in year 8 and I am doing the JMC and master year I did horrible so I was wondering anyone could advise me what topics to revise and how to revise and tips on how to handle questions in the JMC.
Any help with be appreciated.
Thanks,
A

Firstly, competition/problem solving maths is a bit different from school/gcse maths so if youre ok in the latter, its no big deal if you have problems in the former unless you want to do that sort of stuff.

The ukmt past papers are available freely on drfrost https://www.drfrost.org/worksheets.php?wdid=44 and the ukmt site https://ukmt.org.uk/junior-challenges/junior-mathematical-challenge. If youre interested in improving, work through those slowly, open book and think about how to solve the questions, possibly in different ways. Then (eventually) look at the model solutions.

Singhs parallel https://parallel.org.uk/ has regular talks about junior/intermediate stuff and for a free one chapter intro to problem solving, you can download posametiers problem solving intro from https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9478. The whole book is written in a challenge question/discussion format and is probably more readable than polyas at this level.

But a bit of regular practice/thinking is the main thing (if you want to improve).

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 3

A.acer

Original post by mqb2766

Firstly, competition/problem solving maths is a bit different from school/gcse maths so if youre ok in the latter, its no big deal if you have problems in the former unless you want to do that sort of stuff.
The ukmt past papers are available freely on drfrost https://www.drfrost.org/worksheets.php?wdid=44 and the ukmt site https://ukmt.org.uk/junior-challenges/junior-mathematical-challenge. If youre interested in improving, work through those slowly, open book and think about how to solve the questions, possibly in different ways. Then (eventually) look at the model solutions.
Singhs parallel https://parallel.org.uk/ has regular talks about junior/intermediate stuff and for a free one chapter intro to problem solving, you can download posametiers problem solving intro from https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9478. The whole book is written in a challenge question/discussion format and is probably more readable than polyas at this level.
But a bit of regular practice/thinking is the main thing (if you want to improve).