More Photos

More random photos from the facebook albums of Mr Lu's and Gar Goei's.

Playing cling.

With Mr Teo and Yan Sheng.

Cutlery = fingers.

During the coordination of answer scripts.

Notice how tall Vincent is.

Photos and Random Comments on 51st IMO

Below are some photos taken (a few are from Mr Lu's and Gar Goei's facebook).

Group departing from Terminal 3 on 4 July. Participants are in the back row, observers and deputy leader in front row.

Transit at Beijing. Group photo at Birdnest stadium.

Hotel in Astana.

The Baiterek monument and the United Buddy Bears at Astana city.

Ivan and Gabriel with the China Buddy Bear.

Singapore Team participants with observers and Simon (bear).

With team leaders and Singapore flag

Some random comments:

- organisation of IMO failed, a lot of delays, from hotel in Astana we took 6-hr coach ride (!) to the competition venue
- China is the only country that wins 6 Golds; Nie Zipei from China is the only participant with a perfect score of 42

- Belgium beats China in Qn 1 by scoring 42 (i.e. all 6 participants got complete solution for Qn 1) as China scores 'only' 41 in Qn 1, however all 6 Belgium contestants get Honourable Mention (all because of Qn 1, contestants who do not qualify for a medal but score full mark in at least 1 qn will get Honourable Mention)

- Singapore also beats China, Russia, USA and Japan in Qn 1 :)

- Highest team score for Qn 5 is 24. This must be the hardest Qn 5 in the history of IMO.

- North Korea got disqualified. Heard it was because all the contestants use the same lemma (i.e. a proven statement) for Qn 3. You can read more about this incident here in Mathlinks.

- This year's Gold cut-off point of 27 is the lowest in the history of IMO

- Initial cut-off points for Silver and Bronze were 22 and 16 respectively, but Jury voted for 21 and 15. If Bronze cut-off is 16, 43% of contestants are awarded medals (Gold, Silver and Bronze) and if it is 15, 51% are awarded medals.

IMO 2010 Results Out!

This is posted by LJ's mum.

The IMO 2010 results were released about half an hour ago. Here is Singapore's results: 4 Silvers, 1 Bronze and 1 Honourable Mention.



Singapore is ranked 22 out of 96 countries (last year, she was ranked 30 out of 104 countries). Top 5 countries are: China, Russia, USA, Korea and Kazakhstan.

Full results are here. This year the cut-off points for Gold, Silver and Bronze medals are 27, 21 and 15 respectively. Looking at the Singapore Team's individual contestant's results for each question, I think we could have won 4 Golds!! How?? Typically Qn 3 and Qn 6 of the IMO are the hardest questions, so it is understandable if none of them could solve the questions or manage to secure even 1 point. However, IF only Ivan could solve Qn 2 (Geometry) completely, and IF only Jie Jun, Lim Jeck and Yan Sheng could solve Qn 5 (Combinatorics) completely, then this time Singapore would have won 4 Golds, and she would also be ranked among the top 10 countries :D
But sadly the fact is, Singapore has participated 23 times in IMO since 1988, and has only won a grand total of 1 Gold :-( .. nevertheless, I do have the confidence that Singapore can win more Golds within the next years as we see more and more younger students being inducted into the national training team!!

Off to Astana, Kazakhstan

Will be flying in a few hours' time.

Programme of the 51st IMO
5 July - Arrival
6 July - Opening ceremony
7-8 July - 1st and 2nd day of contest
9-12 July - Excursion
13 July - Closing ceremony / farewell dinner
14 July - Departure (reaching Singapore on 15 July)

Questions are usually uploaded quite soon, a few hours after the contest. They can be checked here, at Mathlinks.

I think final results should come in on 11 or 12 July, and can probably be checked from here.

Very Moving Thai Video Clip

If you haven't watched this before, you will be surprised at the ending. It will bring a smile to your face :)



The Thais are really creative people.

Counting Down to 51st IMO

We have been training for IMO at NUS since before the June holidays and the training will officially end this evening.

Official website for 51st IMO: http://www.imo2010org.kz/

Team Singapore:

We will be flying to Beijing from Singapore on 4 July morning, then from Beijing to Almaty (Kazakhstan), and then from Almaty to Astana (capital of Kazakhstan, competition venue).
We were told that the Kazakh food is mainly meat (mostly horse meat!) and milk products, and the most popular drink is tea with milk. In case the food does not appeal to us, we are encouraged to bring instant cup noodles.
National currency is Tenge, 1 tenge = 100 tiyns. 1 SGD is about 100 Tenge.

Qn from 2010 SMO (Junior) Special Round

Someone posted the following question on the cbox:
A student divides an integer m by a positive integer n, where n<=100 and claims that m/n=0.167a1a2... show the student must be wrong.

My solution:

SMO 2010 (Open) Special Round

I could only do 4.5 questions and at least 6 people could do all 5. So I failed. I did qns 1,2,3 in 1.5 hours and qn 5 in 1 hour, and I worked on qn 4 for 2 hours.

SMO 2010 (Senior) Special Round

It was raining very heavily this morning so we were almost late. All the questions were trivial except for maybe question 5 which I don't know anyone who could solve it.

But I only managed to solve 3 questions because of my stupidity.

After the competition, the 6 of us (IMO participants) and our trainers/teachers went to West Coz restaurant for a lunch treat.

Lim Min's Gathering with QtPS (6A'06) friends

Mouth-watering agar agar prepared by Melissa and Angela.

Glutinous rice, tao suan and spaghetti prepared by my mother.

Cupcakes prepared by Julene, pies and egg tarts bought from Leong Sang Hong Kong Pastries at Tiong Bahru.

Roast chicken bought from NTUC Fairprice.

Fried rice prepared by my 1st auntie.

Yao Qing, Jane, Agnes, Julene, Mahadhir, Derek, Kai Jie, Wei Wu

Lim Li choosing food.

Miss Chai, Mr Ng, Joanne.

Jeremy Sim, Sultan, Jia He, Derek, Nicky.

Julene, Yao Qing, Jane, Bun Heng, Wei Wu, Daren, Yuni.

Yuni, Agnes, Melissa.

SIMO Camp Photos

Too lazy to blog. Some of the photos were taken from Ding Yue's facebook.

Back of SIMO t-shirt. It says 'SIMO' at the top - too bad if you don't understand.

First night activity - suicide chess. We also played cling and form/delete word game. Find Lim Min.

Eventually white won (not this group).

Everyone fails to find Yan Sheng's manliness in this game.

Grouping for vertical training. The IMO people are on top. Fail: Ivan. Tall One: Vincent. Cling: Lim Jeck. Flirt: Ang Yan Sheng. Ren Ping: Gabriel. Pikachu: Ang Jie Jun.

Aiyoh: Joseph Kuan. Li Li Potter: Lee You Jun. Chops: Zhan Xiong (maybe). Elmo: Tan Xin Xuan

Failed NUS High turnstile. Just randomly taking. Don't really know who got stuck.

Last dinner at NUS Bistro. Find me.

SMO 2010 (Junior) answers

Contributed by 'NAMELESS', 'hz' and some other random people (thank you!). I have done the remaining 8 or so questions.
1. E
2. D
3. B
4. C
5. A
6. D
7. E
8. B
9. C
10. C
11. 2010
12. 369
13. 51
14. 26
15. 16
16. 322
17. 1139
18. 4021
19. 200
20. 01
21. 2250
22. 31
23. 100
24. 2010
25. 177
26. 3350
27. 672
28. 144
29. 25
30. 11
31. 0
32. 23
33. 42
34. 31680
35. 60

Let me know if you have different answers and you believe you are right.

For the next 6 days (4 - 9 Jun), Lim Min and I will be at the SIMO camp, which is at NUS High.

SMO 2010 (Open) Answers

I think the following answers are correct, with inputs from NUS High and RI friends. Anyone knows of other answers please let me know.
1. 50
2. 199
3. 1159
4. 65
5. 78
6. 2500
7. 26
8. 8038
9. 45
10. 4
11. 11
12. 22023
13. 4021
14. 14
15. 3
16. 8030
17. 841
18. 18
19. 17
20. 10045
21. 2007
22. 12345
23. 86422
24. 309
25. 2011

SMO 2010 (Senior) Answers

My sister and I took the SMO(Senior) today. We checked our answers and with some inputs from NUS High and RI friends, I think these are the correct answers:
1. A
2. E
3. E
4. C
5. B
6. E
7. D
8. B
9. D
10. C
11. 132
12. 2575
13. 501
14. 35
15. 1994
16. 1005
17. 216
18. 27
19. 2010
20. 60
21. 2
22. 65
23. 72
24. 32
25. 2002
26. 49
27. 112
28. 60
29. 6
30. 680
31. 2780
32. 5
33. 360
34. 75
35. 12

Our New Toy

My father bought an iPad. It was shipped from US and we received it yesterday. I think it costs US$7xx (about S$1000). We downloaded many free games and utilities from the Internet (Apple iTunes Store).

Year 3 Semester 1 Results

My semestral GPA is 4.6 (max is 5). I did badly for Fine Art. I look forward to dropping this subject in 1.5 years' time. For Year 5 & 6, I would like to take Maths Major with Honours (already taking it now), Physics Major with Honours, Chemistry Major with Honours and Computer Science Major.

Singapore Team to 51st IMO

The results for the Singapore National Team for 51st International Mathematical Olympiad were released today. Out of the 6 participants selected, 2 are from RI-JC (Ivan Loh and Vincent Tseng), 1 from ACS(I) (Ang Jie Jun) and 3 from NUSH (Ang Yan Sheng, Gabriel Wong and I).

The 51st IMO will be held in Astana, the Republic of Kazakhstan. I do not know much about the country so I googled it - the Republic of Kazakhstan is in Eurasia and ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, and its location is below:


Training for the Singapore IMO national team will start next Thu (20/5) at NUS Maths Dept, and will stretch all the way to the competition itself, which is from 4 Jul to 15 Jul. Just like last year, my 1-month June holidays will be spent on training and I am going to miss many lessons again when school reopens ...

Art of Problem Solving

I think The Art of Problem Solving is the best resource for Maths problem solving. You can also train your quick thinking by playing Maths games with other people. Try FTW! to pit your Maths skills in solving AMC kind of questions against other Maths enthusiasts. At the end of a game, you will be rated against other registered players.

If you have any Maths problems, go to mathlinks.ro and post your problems there (instead of spamming my cbox :) ), and hopefully someone else will answer it for you. It has forums for primary school kind of Maths questions, to high school types, to Maths Olympiad questions, college/university Maths and even Arts and Sciences.
http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/index.php

SIMO NTST 2010

I took the Singapore IMO National Team Selection Test yesterday and today. It was like the IMO format i.e. 3 questions to be done in 4.5 hrs each day. The type of questions were: 1. Geometry, 2. Algebra, 3. Combinatorics, 4. Combinatorics, 5. Number Theory, 6. Inequalities. They were taken from the IMO 2009 Shortlist questions (in the IMO, there are Longlist questions and Shortlist questions, and the 6 questions for IMO are selected from the Shortlist questions). I am not supposed to reveal the questions as some other countries may also be using some of these Shortlist questions which were not selected for IMO questions, for their own national selection tests.

Too bad there was only 1 Geometry qn, usually in the IMO there are 2, one for each day. Anyway, I could only solve qn 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. I think the ever pro Ivan could solve all 6 questions!

*note: this is in fact the 2nd selection test. The 1st selection test with a lower weightage was held about a month ago.

Another Math Qn

Another question posted on the cbox:

A travelled from Town P to Q. B travelled from Town Q to P. They started at the same time. They met each other 80km from Q. When A reached Town Q, he immediately travelled back to Town P. When B reached Town P, he also immediately travelled back to Town Q. They met each other 60km from P. What was the distance from Town P to Town Q?

Solution (not drawn to scale) by Lim Li: