More than twice as many QE boys as last year have qualified for the prestigious Olympiad after success in the Intermediate Maths Challenge.
This year, 280 boys from Years 9–11 entered the Challenge; 25 have qualified for the élite Olympiad, compared to 12 last year, and a further 53 for the separate follow-on Kangaroo round.
Thousands of pupils from more than 30 countries entered the Challenge this year and the top 500 from each school year across these countries have been invited to participate in the Olympiad, with a further 5,500 in the Kangaroo.
“We’re delighted with how well the boys have done,” said Assistant Head of Mathematics, Wendy Fung. “We are particularly pleased with the increased proportion of pupils who have reached the Olympiad.”
Those taking part in the competition, run by the UK Mathematics Trust, are given one hour to answer 25 multiple-choice questions at school under normal examination conditions.
QE’s top scorer was Year 11’s Nitharsan Sathiyalingam who scored 130/135 and received a ‘Best in School’ certificate. Souhardh Kotakadi was the highest scorer in Year 10, with 104, whilst the best in Year 9 was Varun Wignarajah, with 98.
Altogether 92 QE boys were awarded gold certificates, 102 silver and 61 bronze, placing these 255 boys (91% of QE’s entrants) in the top 40% of participants. The certificates are awarded in the ratio of 1:2:3.