SIMO Camp

First day: we ate, did some math problems, ate again, did more math problems, ate, then slept. As you could see, we were always eating and solving math problems. Ryan Chan was my room mate. The food was not very nice as some were spicy and there was no chicken rice (my favourite). The hostel room was as bad. The bed was hard and the toilet was very tiny, probably it only had the length and width of a normal room door's width. At night, we, I mean they (senior team and national team, minus the 6 of us in the IMO team), had ice breakers.

Second day: we ate, did some math problems, ate again, did more math problems, ate, then slept. (I copy-and-paste from first day, as the schedule is quite similar). At night, we had a talk by the X-men, not the wolverine one. X-men are people who have participated in previous IMO.

Third day: we, I mean they, had their vertical training, where they were given 4.5 hours to solve 10 questions in a group. The hardest questions were 8 and 10, but 8 seemed to me like an easy problem. At night, we had an amazing race, which I failed miserably.

Fourth day: we had our first quiz, which was a disaster. Q2 was an extremely easy problem but everyone except Aidi got 0 for that particular question. At night, we had a talk by Jun Wei, one of the younger X-men, about his trip in IMO.

Fifth day: we had our second quiz, which was also a massive failure. In the evening, we had a buffet at a certain NUS bistro/restaurant. According to Ryan, the buffet cost only $15 per person, no wonder the food was lousy and not appetising. Then we went back to the hostel. We stayed in the music room until 12 midnight. Actually, at 11pm, all the gates and doors would be locked and no one could enter or exit, but ingenious us put a slipper at the music room door so it could not close.

Sixth day, which is the last day, we, I mean they again, had their oral quiz in the morning (we conducted the quiz), which was about mine sweeper. After lunch, we packed and left the hostel room for good, no ... not until I reach year 5 (when 1-year hostel stay is compulsory for NUS High students).

I am glad to be back at home :-)

Photo of me solving a geometry problem, courtesy of Shi Fangying (RGS).

Special Round Puzzle

This is a 900-pc round puzzle, which I have completed over a few days (1-2 hrs per day). My mother said she fixed this puzzle with her two younger sisters when they were teenagers, like 30 years ago! Recently, she got it from my 7th aunt.

I think it is harder than the normal rectangular shape puzzle as it is difficult to look for the edge pieces (some inside pieces also have similar almost-straight edges), and there are no corner pieces.

I will be going for the SIMO camp, from 5 - 10 June, and will not be updating my blog till I come back from the camp.

More SMO failures

I took the SMO Open today. Like the Junior and Senior papers, this year's Open paper is also harder than the previous two years'. I am sure I scored less than Ivan. Here are my terrible answers:

12560, 54, 2009, 8, 902, 2, ?, 500, ?(224), 2009, 90335, 38889, 88(96), 21856(21855), 4021, 8997, ?, 447, ?(127), 2008, ?, 1, ?(263), 15, 13405?

As you can see, there are more '?' than the junior paper although it has less questions, which means I failed more than the junior paper. Also note that none of the answers or questions have the numbers 26 and 7(actually it has the number 7 since it is such a common 1-digit number), which means it was not set by Mr Teo. Also note that there are 2 answers with 2009, 1 answer with 1, 1 answer is 2 and 1 answer is 2008.

SMO fail!

This year's SMO (Junior) is harder than last year's, or 2 years ago's. I also made many careless mistakes, as many questions need tedious calculations so I did not have time to check any question. I failed totally this year! Here are my answers:

B(C), A, A, B, D, A(C), B, D (E), E, A, 337, 59(47), 513, 2520, 6, 519(173), 2, 2012, 7, 6, 286, 26, 26(7), 641(133), 5?, 26, 7, 2009(948), 111, 142(90?), 7, 85, 63, 1220, 79497

Notice the number of answers being 26 or 7? I am very sure that some of the questions are set by Mr Teo. Many questions also have the numbers 26 and 7 in them.

Can someone who has taken SMO (Junior) or SMO (Senior) [taken by my sister this year] share your answers in the comments field?

里包恩 Is Cool!

My favourite Japanese Anime - Katekyo Hitman Reborn!! It is cool!

Training, and More Training!

I think I am in trouble! There is so much training in the coming weeks. From 9 am to 5 pm, Mon to Sat, from 25 May to 11 July. That is about 7 weeks of continuous training, and after that, another 10 days in Germany.

How am I going to catch up with my school work after I return to school on 24 July?

Help!!!!

Regrets?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Who is Rich and Who is Poor

I read something recently:

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the purpose of showing him how poor people live.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.

"Oh yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered:
"I saw that we have one dog and they had four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are."

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

Appreciate every single thing you have!

"Life is too short and friends are too few."

(end of passage)

SIMO NTST Results

We got the selection test results today, when the 6 persons who will be representing Singapore in the 50th International Maths Olympiad to be held in Germany, Bremen, from 12 - 22 Jul, were revealed. As expected, Ivan (RI JC), Jia-Han (RI JC) and Ryan Chan (NUS High) have been selected. These 3 are definitely too pro to be not selected!

The others are: Barry Tng (RI JC), Daniel Low (RI JC) and most surprisingly, me. That means, 4 from RI JC and 2 from NUS High.

Being selected, it means the 6 of us have to be at NUS or NUS High to undergo more intensive Maths training, from 25 May to 10 Jul. That includes most of the June holidays. I think I will have to skip some, or alot of lessons during the July period.

The good thing is, the whole trip is sponsored, which means I don't have to pay a cent!

Exam Period

It is exam period now. I will blog again after the exams are over.

8 - 18 May - Exam period. Last paper on 18 May - Vectors in 2 & 3D Space.
20 - 22 May - Marking days
25 - 26 May - Script checking
27 - 29 May - Post-exam activities

I will be attending the SIMO Camp from 5 - 10 June, held at NUS High. It is a 6 Days-5 Nights Free-Lodging-Free-Food (5 meals a day) stay-in camp for the senior team trainees and national team trainees. During the camp, there will be lectures and problem solving in the morning and afternoon, and games and talks during the evening. Hope it will be a fun camp!

SIMO NTST Day 2

We did Q4 to Q6 of the test today. Q4 was on number theory. Q5 was geometry, a lot harder than yesterday's Q1. Q6 was on combinatorics. It took me 3 hours just to solve Q5 and I wrote rubbish for the remaining 2 qns. For Q6, I drew the construction, wrote n=6 and gave a false proof. I wasn't sure what I was writing for Q4. I am sure I FAILED today's test. For the whole 2-day test, I solved 4 out of 6 qns. Ang Yan Sheng (my Year 3 senior) did 1 qn today too, just like me. Ryan Chan (my Year 4 senior) did all 3 today (in total 6 - today's 3 plus yesterday's 3). I think Ryan, Ivan Loh (RI JC1) and Jia Han (RI JC2) should get selected for the final squad. Not sure of the remaining 3.

Some people were complaining that Ivan kept saying 'fail' or 'shi bai' during the test. One thing I like about the NTST is, I am able to skip Chemistry make-up lesson this afternoon at NUS High. Hahahaha.

SIMO National Team Selection Test Day 1

I took the Day 1 of the Singapore International Mathematical Olympiad (SIMO) National Team Selection Test at NUS today, on Labour Day. But I laboured for 4.5 hrs. Ivan Loh from RI-JC laboured for less than 2 hours and everyone was so 'suan' (I think it means, envious or jealous of him). There were 3 questions and I solved 2.9 of them. It was easier than the normal IMO and at least 7 people could solve all of them. Q1 was a geometry qn, Q2 was inequality or algebra and Q3 was number theory. Q2 was a question in the RI's training 2 days ago and it was unfair as the RI students already knew the solution. Q1 was the easiest and I doubt anyone do not know how to solve it. Q3 was a pure whack method, where you used brute force to solve it.

I took 10 minutes to solve Q1, 2 hours to solve Q2 and 1.5 hrs to solve Q3. The rest of the time I did nothing.

Funny Song About Mum

Intensive Maths Training

These two weeks (20 - 29 Apr) I will be having intensive Maths Olympiad training from 8 am to 5 pm, at NUS High. I will be excused from lessons and assessments during this period. This is because the selection of the final squad to represent Singapore for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) 2009 will be held on 1 & 2 May. The test will have 6 questions, 3 questions per day and a total of 9 hrs (i.e. 1.5 hrs per question).

However, I have decided to continue attending my normal lessons. Otherwise there may be a lot of catching up to do after the selection test. But since now I have the opportunity to skip lessons, I will be skipping PE, ACE, Da Vinci, CCA, mentoring sessions and Maths.

Last year, 3 of the 6 representatives for IMO Singapore Team were from NUS High. Hopefully, some of my seniors can do NUSH proud by being selected this year!! I am 100% confident I won't be selected, but this is a good opportunity for me to be trained, and be excused from classes : )

Buffet Dinner at Parkroyal

Last Friday was my paternal grandmother's birthday. We went to Parkroyal at Beach Road for dinner.

There was a widespread of items, like fried rice, fried crab, roast duck, fish fillet, chocolate fondue (can dip marshmallow or waffles), cakes, large prawns, sushi, different flavoured roti prata, ice kachang, ice cream, etc. After our buffet, my cousins, my sisters and I mixed sugar, salt, friut juice, ice kachang ice, sprinkles, chocolate chips, molten chocolate (fondue which hardens when cooled) in water, just for fun as we had nothing to do. My sister drank a scoop and she said it was 'delicious'. I think the best food is fried rice!

High Tea at Sakae Sushi

Yesterday, my family went to Sakae Sushi for High Tea, at about 3.14 pm. We did not eat lunch. Everytime I go to a restaurant for buffet, I only pay for the child's price, for less than 12 years old, although I am almost 14. The waiter did not even ask, just assumed that I was in primary school. That is one advantage of being short. The nicest sushi there is not the sushi, but the brown wrapping beancurd as shown below. The most expensive one is the small red egg, which doesn't taste nice for me, also shown below. We could stay until 6pm, but my mother forced us to leave at 5.30pm. Anyway, I was so bloated that I would explode if I ate another of the small red egg. In the end, though we took 20+ plates of sushi, I still think it was not worth it as one's cost for dinner and lunch should be less than over $10 each, but we paid a total of about $80 for our family of 5 persons.

Too Busy

Someone (Aaron) complained that I have not updated my blog. Well, I have been very busy for the past 2 weeks.

Last week - 5 common tests - Maths, Bio, Chem, Physics, Geog; Chinese专题作业 '当大厨，做大菜' due

This week - English compre test, Bio project 4 due (Ecosystem Visit Field Trip report), Chem Journal assignment due (give a critical analysis of New Scientist Magazine article 'Liming fails the acid test'), Maths assignments and tutorials, Chinese tingxie

Coming: English book review 'To Kill A Mockingbird', Bio project 5 (Design A Terrarium), Geog project

Can this be considered an update?

屁股的笑话

老师在黑板上画了个苹果。
“这是什么呀？”
“屁股！”
“什么？”
“屁股！”
老师被气哭了，找来了校长。
校长来到教室，看了看，问：“谁画了个屁股欺负老师？” LOL

Translated to English:

A teacher drew an apple on the blackboard.

"What is this?"

"Backside!"

"What?"

"Backside!"

The teacher was so angry that she cried. She complained to the principal, who came into the class, took a glance at the blackboard, and queried, "Who bullied your teacher with this drawing of a backside?"

Math Enrichment Workshop

Yesterday and today, I attended the Math Enrichment Workshop organised by the Gifted Education Branch.

The first day was held at Duman High. All of us were divided into 20+ groups and we played some games in 2 groups. Not all the games were related to Maths. The non Maths-related games were to help us know our own groupmates better. After that, we were back to our groups and we did a sudoku. The sudoku was not a 9x9 one, but a 16x16. It's harder than I thought and the leader of every group was not allowed to tell us the answer. However, our leader cheated and gave us some hints. Other leaders probably did the same. After that we had our lunch and went for our concurrent sessions. Mine was on Graph and Vertex Colouring.

The next day, we were supposed to reach Dunman High at 8.00am. However, I proceeded to Marina Barrage directly and arrived at 1.30pm, as I had to go for AIME in the morning. I think I did really badly for AIME this year :( [updated on 7 Apr - checked the answers on AMC website. Luckily, I still got 7 correct! Hooray!!!!!! same as last year]. When we were at Marina Barrage, we solved some problems in stations. Some were rather easy while others were really troublesome and took some time to solve. We did not do a great job as we did not manage to solve all the problems. After that, we returned to Dunman High, did a survey, had a tea break and went to the auditorium to discuss the trail at the Marina Barrage. When they gave out the prizes, group 22 got 3rd and group 3 got 2nd. Group 3 was Jonathan's group, and I felt rather envious. When they announced the 1st place, it was group 4, that's our group!! When we compared our prizes, Jonathan got a pencil case, while our group got a BIGGER pencil case. It was really quite lame. Actually, it was a bag with a number of stationery items inside: correction tape, file clips, magnet clips, pen, highlighter and book mark.

Zoom Out (This is Cool!)

Maths Competitions

I just got my AMC10A (American Maths Contest 10A) results on Friday. My score is 144/150, as I have made a careless mistake in Qn 19 - calculated as radius <= 100 though the question stated r < 100. Agrh... but it is still an improvement over my last year's score, which was 139.5/150.

Though the results for AMC12B is not out yet, I checked the answers from the AMC website. I have left 4 blanks, one of which was a very easy question but I did not understand what was 'parenthesis' (actually, it means brackets) so skipped that question. I made more careless mistakes in AMC12B - after calculating the score, I think I should be getting 108/150 (it's quite bad, I know), nevertheless it is also an improvement over my last year's score, which was 103.5/150.

More competitions:
10 Mar - Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad (APMO)
17 Mar - American Invitational Mathematical Examination AIME I
1 Apr - AIME II
2 Jun - SMO Junior
3 Jun - SMO Open