UKMTMathsChallenge

By:AnooshayKhan(Year10)

Hello, everyone! How are you? I’m going to just briefly mention the UKMT Math challenge that happened on the 1st of February.

So, what exactly does UKMT mean?

U: United

K: Kingdom

M: Mathematics

T: Trust

What did we do in the challenge?

The challenge was online, so we had to bring our devices, and do the test online. The challenge had about 24 or so questions, each of which had 5 multiple choice questions and you had to choose an answer. The challenge was a no calculator challenge and it made me miss my calculator to a great extent and made me appreciate its value even more than I already had. It made me learn that we should not take things for granted. However, you were allowed a blank piece of paper to do your working out on.

What type of questions came in the challenge?

The questions in the challenge certainly made you think outside of the box, they were mathematical questions, obviously, yet they were also very mentally challenging. The hard part was not the mathematical aspect yet more so the extremely unique questions which you had to decipher first. However, it wasn’t all bad, it was quite an enriching and educational experience which could perhaps help when we write our university applications in a few years time.

What year groups took part?

The challenge consisted of only Year 7 to 11. As far as I am aware, the sixth form was not a part of it.

Briefing about the challenge

It is a challenge that occurs in the UK as well as the British schools around the world. The challenge has a few steps, if you pass the first round, which was what we did; answering a few questions, then you could move on to the next round and so on and so forth until you win the challenge.

How long did we have to complete the challenge?

The amount of time we had was akin to that of a double lesson; as in 1 hour. Yes, we had a whole hour to complete it and we did miss some lessons but, in my case, I did not miss any hard lessons because I missed my math lesson just to do some more challenging math!

How did we enter the challenge?

I did not sign up for it or ask anyone to add me to the team, instead Mrs. Anthony added a select few students into the UKMT math challenge team and gave us some information about what the challenge was and gave us some exemplar questions with solutions, so we knew what to expect. However, I believe you could also have asked to join the team, as my friend did so and was successfully added to the team. Nevertheless, she was the only one doing the challenge after asking to be added, whereas everyone else was just added by miss Anthony.

Who ran the challenge?

As I have mentioned above, Mrs. Anthony was the one who added us to the team, however I believe she was told by the math teachers on who to add to the team.

What did we do in the challenge?

The challenge was online, so we had to bring our devices, and do the test online. The challenge had about 24 or so questions, each of which had 5 multiple choice questions and you had to choose an answer. The challenge was a no calculator challenge and it made me miss my calculator to a great extent and made me appreciate its value even more than I already had. It made me learn that we should not take things for granted. However, you were allowed a blank piece of paper to do your working out on.

What kind of questions came in the challenge?

The questions in the challenge certainly made you think outside of the box, they were mathematical questions, obviously, yet they were also very mentally challenging. The hard part was not the mathematical aspect yet more so the extremely unique questions which you had to decipher first. However, it wasn’t all bad, it was quite an enriching and educational experience which could perhaps help when we write our university applications in a few years’ time.