Students Place Third at Senior Team Maths Challenge

At the UK Senior Team Maths Challenge Island School’s team came third after completing three difficult rounds, at Harrow International School on 15 Sep 2016.

Team member Isabella Chan Y12 talks about the event. “We decided on a rule: to enjoy the challenge and work together.

Having gone to the maths challenge in the previous year, I knew that the main focus of our team should be collaboration. Maths is a subject that requires a lot of individual thinking, but it also relies on clear communication.”

“The first round was the Group Round. Each team was given the same ten questions to solve in forty minutes. Our strategy was to split the ten questions into difficult and simple questions, complete each individually, and then check the questions in pairs.”

“The second round was the Crossnumber, similar to a crossword, but with numerical answers. The teams then worked in pairs, with one solving the across clues and the other solving the down clues. The grid is then completed independently by each pair. I am proud to say that for this particular round, my team placed second.”

“The final round was the Shuttle, where subsequent questions are dependent on the previous answer. This round was especially difficult because we were not allowed to communicate with each other at all except when declaring our answers.”

“Each round was difficult in separate ways and we faced off against some of the best math students in Hong Kong, but through our collaboration, our team placed third! Even though we were all mentally exhausted, we still had fun.”

“On behalf of the students that participated this year, I’d like to thank Mrs Chiu for organising the teams as well as the staff that accompanied us during the day. I look forward to participating again next year.”

The Team
Ryan Lee, Anna Choi, Brandon Cho, Isabella Chan.