Math Olympiad papers can seem rather overwhelming, isn’t it? Furthermore, as it should be – a very much set Olympiad question will test your fundamentals and logical skills and challenge your perspective.
Irrespective of the way that most of the so-called “Math Olympiads” coordinated by various businesses in our country are way off the mark to international standards, the questions in even those are overall “harder” than the ones you face usually in school tests or exams.
In solving these types of questions, you for the most part should have the option to think rapidly on your feet – one variable that makes these questions harder is that the time accessible to you is restricted. A second element is that you might have negative checking for the wrong answer, so sometimes apparently better to leave the question as opposed to placing in an answer you are not sure about. To add to the confusion, sometimes more than one answer may be right.
So how would you tackle this? The first step of course (to emphasize a point made in a previous article we composed) is “Don’t Panic”. Take a full breath, unwind, read the questions and give a valiant effort.
In this blog, we discuss some broad practices you should follow. In the following piece of this blog, we’ll discuss some specific math techniques that could be useful to you tackle such exams better.
The first step is to ensure every one of your resources is there with you – pencils, erasers, and spare paper for computations (whenever permitted). It seems inconsequential, yet these are things that you would rather not stress over once the test starts. Presently, start perusing the paper. There are no standards here – various individuals do it in various ways. Some individuals start from a decent area, commonly the start of the paper, however, some folks even prefer to start toward the end (the hypothesis being that the examiners would have become weary of tracking down intense questions, and would start putting easier questions towards the end – of course, no sensible examiner would set papers that way). Some different folks like to search for questions in topics they are recognizable in and attempt those first. Anything that approaches you are alright with is fine.
The most significant thing is where many individuals commit their error – read the question totally and cautiously. Spend as much time as you need on this part. Any mistake you make here will ensure you find some unacceptable solution.
Allow me to rehash this – read the question cautiously and totally. Sort out what’s going on with the question. Take cautious note of the multitude of values and information given in the question.
Then, and really at that time, should you start attempting to track down the answer?
Furthermore, whenever you have solved it, or think you have – make sure that your answer without a doubt is the thing the question is asking for (If, for example, the question asked for the speed of a vehicle, and you have 121 seconds as your answer – something has turned out badly)
Second, monitor the time. Keep a general idea of how long you have per question. It need not be precise – for example, assuming you have 2 hours and there are 50 questions, just think that you’ll have around 2 minutes for each question. Of course, you might do some questions faster, yet remember this general time per question. On the off chance that you are sure of a question, you could take somewhat more time (say 3 minutes) on it, yet for the most part, make an effort not to spend more than they figured time per question. Preferably you should target leaving the last 10 minutes for a fast revision.
Presently, if you haven’t endeavored every one of the questions when you find there are 10 or so minutes passed on then now is the ideal time to start singling out the excess questions. Go through them rapidly to see which ones look easiest for you to solve. Then attempt those. The following tip is on using your spare paper. It can get extremely messy rapidly, so you should separate specific areas for questions for which you want to use the spare paper for calculation. You could use a lattice sort of structure if that helps – however, the point is to use it successfully and perfectly. Also, ensure that for questions where you use it, duplicate every one of the values accurately to the spare sheet. Double-check it, and triple-check. Do the same thing while copying back the answers.
