More Photos

These photos were taken by our teachers, Mrs Ng and Ms Lim.

Group photo with our buddies and teachers (Mrs Ng and Ms Lim).

1-Day Excursion on 12 August. We visited 赵州桥 (above) and 大佛寺.

Accessing Internet from the staff room, during our free time.

CGMO Photos

CGMO Opening Ceremony.

Our quad-sharing hostel room in Shijiazhuang No. 2 Middle High School. With the exception of Zhang Aidi who climbed up the upper deck to sleep, the rest of us brought the mattresses down and slept on the floor.

Uniform provided by CGMO organiser, which we had to wear for opening and closing ceremonies.

This building is the library of Shijiazhuang No. 2 Middle High School.

The open concept bathing area. Only the China girls dared to bathe here openly. The girls from the other countries either bathed with T-shirts and shorts, or locked the place when bathing alone, or bathed in the hostel toilet (with buckets of water).

One of the well-decorated classroom walls.

So much wastage, at the closing dinner. After we had our fill, these were the left over dishes.

CGMO Results Out!

This is posted by LJ's mum.

This year's CGMO officially closes today. About 200 students participated, of which 20 are awarded Gold medals, 40 Silver medals and 60 Bronze medals.

The two Singapore teams comprising 8 girls won a total of 5 medals, as follows:
Silver - Aidi
Bronze - Catharine, Lim Min, Jazlene, Pin Lin

Congrats to the girls! It is a marked improvement over last year's haul of 1 Bronze medal.

CGMO 2010

Lim Min has flown to Shanghai early this morning (1.15 am) on SQ826, and she will be taking another flight at 12.50 pm to Shijiazhuang Daguocun. She is part of the RI/RGS team (comprising Catharine, Xin Xuan, Aidi and Lim Min) which is taking part in the China Girls Maths Olympiad held at Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province, about 40 miles southwest of Beijing. There are 2 teams from Singapore; NUS High is sending the other team of 4 girls.

The programme/itinerary is as follows:
8 Aug (Sun) - Arrival, check-in to Shijiazhuang No. 2 Middle School Student Dormitory
9 Aug (Mon) - Opening ceremony
10 Aug (Tue) - Competition Day 1
11 Aug (Wed) - Competition Day 2
12 Aug (Thu) - Excursion / Closing dinner
13 Aug (Fri) - Closing ceremony / departure to Singapore (arrival at Changi Airport at 12.25 am, 14 Aug)

Wishing both Singapore teams all the best!

NMOS 2010 Special Round Qn 5

Question 5: A company could use any of the 3 builder (Anthony, Bob and Charles) to build a wall. Anthony would take A days to build the wall. Likewise, Bob and Charles would take B days and C days to build the wall respectively.
Anthony and Bob take 16.8 days to complete a wall.
Anthony and Charles take 21 days to complete a wall.
Bob and Charles take 28 days to complete a wall.

Solution:
Anthony builds 1 wall in A days. Hence, Anthony builds 1/A wall in 1 day.
Similarly, Bob builds 1/B wall in 1 day, and Charles builds 1/C wall in 1 day.
In 1 day, Anthony and Bob together will build (1/A + 1/B) wall. In 16.8 days, Anthony and Bob will build [16.8x(1/A + 1/B)] wall which is 1 wall since Anthony and Bob complete the wall in 16.8 days. Hence, we get the following equations:

16.8(1/A + 1/B) = 1
21(1/A + 1/C) = 1
28(1/B + 1/C) = 1
Implying..
1/A + 1/B = 1/16.8 -------- (1)
1/A + 1/C = 1/21 ---------- (2)
1/B + 1/C = 1/28 ---------- (3)

(1)+(2)-(3)
2(1/A) = 1/16.8 + 1/21 - 1/28 = 1/14
Therefore, 1/A = 1/28, hence, A = 28.
From (1), 1/B = 1/16.8 - 1/28 = 1/42. Hence, B = 42.
From (2), 1/C = 1/21 - 1/28 = 1/84. Hence, C = 84.

Answer: A+B+C=154

NMOS 2010 Special Round Answers

1. 20
2. 2
3. 15
4. 216
5. 154
6. 54
7. 25
8. 12
9. 38
10. 75
11. 542
12. 48
13. 108
14. 12
15. 65
16. 24
17. 40
18. 25
19. 4
20. 62

Note: many answers were contributed by Lim Min and Lim Jeck.
Lim Li - if you have different answers and you are sure that you are correct, please let me know.

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