New Zealand Maths Olympiad Committee online

This year’s team selection will be based on three competitions (the BMO2, the AMO, and the APMO) and four assignments: one on each of the four Olympiad areas of algebra, combinatorics, geometry and number theory.

Here is the squad’s first assignment, on number theory. The problems are taken from a variety of sources; these will be acknowledged in the solutions, which I’ll post in a month’s time, together with the second assignment. Following our usual practice, you can get the solutions before then if you write to me with evidence that you’ve made a serious attempt.

Enjoy!

- Chris

A number of students from New Zealand recently took part in round 1 of the British Mathematics Olympiad. Results will be available later in December, or early in January. In the mean time you might enjoy looking at the problems, or possibly the solutions (in video form) featuring a mystery guest star in question 6.

Michael

Thank you to everyone who participated in the September problems. We had a large number of high quality entries this year, which will give us an excellent pool from which to select the participants for January’s camp in Christchurch. Let me just take this opportunity to remind you that we treat these problems as a filter rather than a competition. In other words we will not be releasing scores or rankings, simply using them to make the decision about whom to invite to the camp. Anyhow, a number of you have expressed interest in seeing the solutions, so here they are.

Do keep in mind that these are only possible solutions. For maths problems of this type, there is generally more than one correct path (but, unfortunately also many more incorrect paths!) towards a solution. You may well have found (or thought you found) a better one. The evaluation of your papers is done on their individual merits, not by comparison to any sort of a standard or official solution.

Michael

The Friday Test used to select the training squad for the 2009 New Zealand team to the International Mathematical Olympiad.

This contest, held at the 2009 January Camp, featured a series of exercises in algebra and trigonometry.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

The second problem set from the 2009 camp.