Viewing archives for Maths

QE has continued its record of ever-improving performance in the Intermediate Maths Challenge, as the number of boys going through tops 170.

After sitting the Intermediate Maths Challenge (IMC), which is run by the UK Mathematics Trust, 30 boys from Years 9–11 join a national élite of young mathematicians going on to participate in the Intermediate Maths Olympiad – up from 27 boys last year and 19 the year before. Across the whole country, only around 500 high-scorers in each year group are invited to join the Olympiad.

A further 143 QE boys have qualified for the challenge’s other follow-on round, the Intermediate European Kangaroo. With 140 qualifying last year and 133 in 2017, this reflects another rising trend. Nationally, a total of 5,500 pupils across all three year groups are invited to sit the Kangaroo test papers.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “We are delighted with how well the boys have done and extremely pleased with the continued increase in the proportion of them reaching the follow-on rounds. As the new 9-1 GCSE has a strong focus on problem-solving, success in the IMC will stand the boys in good stead for the new-style exams.”

A total of 319 boys at the School took part in this year’s IMC. Of these, 172 were awarded gold certificates, 91 took silver and 39 bronze. The top 40 per cent of students nationally receive a gold, silver or bronze certificate in the ratio 1:2:3.

Each school or college also receives a Best in School certificate. James Tan, of Year 11, was this year’s winner, with a score of 127 out of 135. He said that he had particularly relished the geometry questions. Next in Year 11 was Gurman Saini, with 122: “I enjoyed getting my head around the riddles,” he said. He was closely followed by Hari Gajendran, on 121.

The Best in Year 10 accolade went to Dan Suciu, with 125, followed by Abhinav Santhiramohan, with 115. Best in Year 9 was Ansh Jassra, scoring 119 – “I like the blend of complex, challenging Maths and fun, creative problem-solving,” he said – and second place went to Arnie Sahi, on 116.

The names of the Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad papers are: Cayley, Hamilton and Maclaurin for Years 9, 10 and 11 respectively. The Kangaroo papers, which are sat by pupils from more than 30 countries, last one hour and feature 25 multiple-choice questions.

• Here is one of the questions from this year’s IMC:

A 24-hour digital clock shows the time in hours and minutes. How many times in one day will it display all four digits 2, 0, 1 and 9 in some order?
A 6
B 10
C 12
D 18
E 24

Four Year 10 boys shone in this year’s Maths Feast competition, rising to the challenge of tough questions that even included topics from the A-Level Further Mathematics syllabus.

They won two of the four rounds at the London Academy of Excellence in Tottenham, taking the maximum possible points total in the Dessert round, as well as winning the Starter round. At the end of the event, they had netted 109 points out of an overall possible total of 121, placing them first out of the 15 schools taking part, with the QE boys playing as team no. 8.

The team, who were selected by the School, comprised Andy Kwak, Alexandre Lee, Sheikh Mohiddin, and Dan Suciu.

Congratulating them, Mathematics teacher Kirtan Shah said: “This was a truly commendable achievement. All four students worked well together as a team, strategising and using each other’s strengths to their advantage.”

The competition, which is held at locations across the country, is run by the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (AMSP) – a Government-funded initiative – and is billed as a “fun educational challenge for Year 10 students which tests problem-solving and teamwork skills”.

Each Maths Feast event is a one-off, with no further heats or finals, so participants and their accompanying teachers can take materials back with them to their schools.

This year’s challenge involved teams working on a variety of problems, ranging from a Merry Go round requiring a large amount of independent work to a relay that involved working in pairs. The A-Level Further Mathematics content came as the ‘surprise’ element of the competition; it was based around networks and algorithms.

Afterwards, team member Andy said: “I found the whole event a way for me to improve my problem-solving skills, especially in the individual round, where we had to work by ourselves and had no one else to depend on.”

Fifty sixth-formers enjoyed an entertaining day getting to grips with Mathematics that ranged from the offbeat and entertaining to applications that were literally out of this world.

The Year 12 pupils headed off to the Royal Institution in central London for Maths Fest 2019 – a Mathematics festival for schools designed to inculcate a passion for the subject among young people. The event is the brainchild of mathematicians and speakers Matt Parker and Rob Eastaway.

Accompanying the Sixth Form mathematicians were Mathematics teachers Joelle Simpson and Karmen Chiu. Mrs Simpson said: “All in all, the day was a fantastic trip out for the Year 12s; whilst they did know much of the Maths discussed, it was then applied to fun and interesting real-life examples, and there were also many new mathematical concepts introduced.”

First up was the host, Matt Parker, who entertained the students by asking a member of the audience to pick any two-digit number. He then proceeded to fill a 4×4 grid with each row, column, the four corners and each 2×2 square adding up to the two-digit number.

Science presenter Steve Mould then showed the audience 2D and 3D shapes of constant width that are not circles or spheres, before somewhat precariously riding a skateboard to demonstrate how easily he could slide along with these unique shapes. His most famous discovery is “self-siphoning beads”; a string of metal beads strung together on a chain, which, when released from its container, seems to defy gravity and move upwards before falling to the ground.

Joint host Rob Eastaway talked about Pascal’s Triangle (a triangular arrangement of numbers in which each number is the sum of the pair of numbers directly above it) and finding the ‘true centre’ of odd shapes. QE pupil Adam Hassan said: “Rob Eastaway’s lecture showed how we often make assumptions that are completely wrong, and sometimes the correct answer is the one that you would least expect it to be.”

Astronomer Lucie Green discussed the sun – Ishveer Sanghera commented that he particularly enjoyed her application of Mathematics to the solar system, including calculating how much longer the sun would burn for.

Oxford applied mathematician David Acheson made an “hilarious video” on finding pi using equipment found around his home, Miss Chiu reported. He talked about vibrations and nodes on strings, before ending the day with a “fantastic solo on his electric guitar”. Pupil Karan Patel also enjoyed this lecture, “especially the maths behind the snowball’s radius increasing at a decreasing rate, as well as the pizza box experiment”.

Other QE boys enjoying the day included: Suleman Yusuf, who relished Matt Parker’s “insightful” exploration of the world of puzzles; Shangeay Senathirajah, who praised a “truly eye-opening experience” which showed how Mathematics is useful in day-to-day life, and Alejandro Lynch Gonzalez, who appreciated learning about areas of the subject not covered by the Mathematics curriculum.

Three sixth-formers have qualified for the next stage of the élite British Mathematical Olympiad after strong performances in the first round.

Bashmy Basheer, Nico Puthu and Niam Vaishnav, all of Year 13, were among nine boys to reach Round 1 of the Olympiad, which is itself one of the follow-on rounds of the UK Mathematics Trust’s Senior Maths Challenge. They won a certificate of distinction and a bronze medal, with Nico scoring 40 out of 60 and both Bashmy and Niam scoring 37.

They now progress to Round 2, where success results in an invitation to participate in training to represent the country in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung congratulated the three on their achievement in the first round and wished them success in Round 2.

Their fellow Year 13 pupils, Kiran Aberdeen, Kishan Patel and Robert Sarkar, also achieved a certificate of distinction. The remaining three sixth-formers all achieved a certificate of qualification in Round 1, which consisted of six long, extended questions to be completed in three-and-a-half hours.

A further 29 sixth-formers took part in the Senior Maths Challenge’s other follow-on round, the Senior Kangaroo, which represents an increase on the 2017 total of 25 and the 2016 figure of ten.

Thirteen boys were each awarded a merit certificate for scores of 35 and above. Saruthan Seelan (pictured above right) in fact achieved double this total, with his score of 70 out of 100 making him the best in Year 12.

Sehj Khanna (left) was the highest scorer in Year 13 with 50/100.

The Senior Kangaroo is a one-hour paper, with all the questions requiring three-digit. Certificates of merit are awarded to the top 25%.

A QE boy’s correct answer to an outlandish numerical and scientific challenge won him a prize during a show aimed at inspiring young mathematicians.

Aryan Shrivastava correctly calculated that 7.5 million tins of Alphabetti Spaghetti would be needed to list the entire human genome, netting him a signed copy of Helen Pilcher’s book, Bring Back the King, which looks at the science that makes the resurrection of extinct animals a real possibility.

Helen, a scientist, comedian and writer for the science magazine, Nature, was the host for The Maths Inspiration Show at London’s Piccadilly Theatre, which was attended by around 60 Year 11 boys from QE.

She explored the distribution of letters found in a tin of Alphabetti Spaghetti. Her hypothesis was that there should be a strong correlation between the letters found in a tin and the occurrence of letters in the English language. In fact, the scatter graph she produced showed no correlation, nor did others for different languages, reported Mathematics teacher Phillip Brady.

Mr Brady said that Hugh Hunt, who is a lecturer at Cambridge University “put us all in a spin discussing the motion of balls, wheels and tops. He demonstrated how the gyroscopic effect can be used to rotate spacecraft and described why boomerangs come back (as well as demonstrating his boomerang-throwing skills).”

And he added that added that another speaker, Ben Sparks, who visited QE last year to speak to Year 10, took inspiration from Sting’s song, Shape of my Heart (about a poker player) to discuss some probability “whilst warning us of the perils of gambling. He was safe in his bet that in a random selection of 60 of the audience of 15 to 17 year-olds: there was at least one pair who shared a birthday.”

Matt Parker, who describes himself as a “stand-up mathematician”, related some of the mathematical errors set out in his book, Humble Pi. Some, he said, were simply amusing or embarrassing, such as McDonalds miscounting the combinations of meal deals and Pepsi underestimating the value of a fighter plane. However, he pointed out that some other mistakes he had come across could have more serious consequences, such as an aeroplane running out of fuel because the wrong units had been used to fill the tanks.

Afterwards, the pupils reflected on their favourite speakers of the day. Priyan Solanki said: “Hugh Hunt’s demonstration of the gyroscopic precession was very interesting.” (Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body.) Harrishan Kangatheepan enjoyed Matt Parker’s explanation of how our minds can deceive us, especially with enormous numbers such as a trillion, while Ridwan Khan’s interest was piqued by Ben Sparks, from whom he learned aspects of probability that were new to him.

Communication and teamwork skills as well as mathematical ability were key requirements at the regional round of the Senior Team Maths Challenge.

The four-strong QE team scored 164 points out of a possible 172 in the closely fought event hosted by City of London School.

Representing QE in the competition run by the UK Mathematics Trust and the FMSP (Further Mathematics Support Programme) were Edward Hu, Bhavesh Patel, Suvir Rathore and Saruthan Seelan, all from Year 12.

The competition offers pupils an alternative way to express and develop their enjoyment of Mathematics, as well as developing teamwork and communication.

There were three rounds:

• In the Group round, ten questions had to be solved in 40 minutes
• In the Crossnumber, one pair of competitors was given the across clues and the other pair the down clues, although several clues were interlinked
• In the Shuttle, pairs answered questions alternately, with the answer to the previous question providing crucial information for the following one.

The QE team came sixth out of the 30 teams who had entered. First place went to Highgate School, second to Dame Alice Owen’s School and third to the hosting independent boys’ school.

Team captain Edward Hu said “We had a great day competing against and meeting other mathematicians. It was fun and we really enjoyed the Crossnumber, but were obviously disappointed not to progress further in the competition.”