UK Maths Trust provides awesome resources

UK Maths Trust provides awesome resources, from interesting and insightful questions which challenge kids in a particular age group and level to detailed solutions and videos to learn from. It is almost like they want kids to be great at Maths. (They certainly do)

This post discusses what I like about these questions and papers.

1. The age group suggests England & Wales: Year 8 or below Scotland: S2 or below Northern Ireland: Year 9 or below. That gives an idea of the age that is suitable. Age 12 or below.
2. The variation in difficulty, each question gets progressively more difficult, so perhaps the final questions would be for an able student from the largest applicable age group, which means some questions can be done by younger kids.
3. Point 2 also shows what is hard, which is add a bit of algebra, let x be the answer that I am looking for and a dash of logic for that extra mind blowing difficulty.
4. The questions are often presented with words and sentences. I think in real world Mathematics, set questions rarely present themselves immediately as 1+1=2. Mathematics requires comprehension and understanding of the problem, then formulate into a calculation.
5. Fundamentals – like generic understanding of numbers, odd and even numbers, digits in multiples of 3 adds to multiples of 3. e.g. 111 is a multiple of 3. (3×97) so 10001000001 is a multiple of 3 (3×3333666667). I don’t make up the rules. Apparently, digits in multiples of 9 adds up to 9, I didn’t know that one..
6. Geometry, or properties of shapes and angles are common questions. Angles in intersections with parallel lines, etc, make excellent questions for slightly younger than 12 year olds.

Try and do a few questions a day, understanding the fundamental concepts required for each question will surely supplement the child school curriculum.

There are some similarities with the UKMT Maths questions compared to the King’s Scholarship Maths papers. The fact that UKMT has a few levels beyond means it is likely that the Maths Olympiad difficulty is likely to be higher than King’s Scholarship papers.

What do you need to start a Maths Challenge?

A four step approach. 1st step is to understand the question, like really understand the key information so we go to the right direction. 2nd step is to think about what we already know if there are possible gaps in our knowledge base. 3rd step is to show the step by step working and finally the 4th step is to review with someone with more knowledge and experience.