Maths Comps vs. VCE Maths

[Gloamglozer]

There is not a strong correlation between results attained in Maths Competition and in VCE Maths. I'll take one competition I took as an example - The University of Melbourne/BHP School Mathematics Competition. 7 worded problems, 3 hours, and you had to write explanations of how you came up with the answer. In the end I could only do 4 problems, and one of them took 3-4 pages of writing.

Careless mistakes are irrelevant in these circumstances, it's all about your problem solving skill, your speed, and your ability to communicate your conceptual understanding. Conversely all the questions on the VCE exam were easily solved, hence the ability to not make careless mistakes is paramount. In addition there is more than enough time to do every question, and you really only need to write down your answers and a bit of working out, which is nothing compared to the competition I referred to.

The two people who attained 50 in Spesh at my school this year never scored that highly on this competition, whereas Elvey-Price attained first place for it, and still got 43.

This is my theory - you don't need to be excellent at Maths to get a 50, you only need to be good enough. Once you have surpassed this level of "good enough," any additional mathematical prowess becomes irrelevant, and it becomes a matter of who can best avoid mistakes.

+1

In short, VCE Maths is about perfecting, Competition maths is about knowledge.

When I read both these posts, didn't need to think twice about karma. 

[addikaye03]

IMO 2007:
Sen Lin AUS3 Sen Lin 0 1 0 7 1 0 tot 9 HON
AUS5 Matthew Cedric Menzies 7 7 0 7 7 0 tot 28 SILVER

HSC Mathematics Extension 1(Second Highest Level):
Sen Lin First in the state (100/100)
Matthew Menzies Did not state rank (did get >90/100)

HSC Mathematics Extension 2 (Highest Level)
Sen Lin Equal First in the state (100/100)
Matthew Menzies Equal First in the state (100/100) {They were the only two}

So it's interesting that Sen was so amazing at HSC maths, where the later questions often involve quite high geometric ability and sometimes a level of mathematical rigour, but this had no correlation with IMO. I'm guessing that Matthew made alot of mistakes (careless) in MX1, but must have found MX2 interesting and didn't make errors in it. I suppose maybe he concentrated on it. Also he went very well in the IMO.

[appianway]

I heard from some SydGramm kids that Matt wrote "elementary" at the end of his 4U paper.

On a completely random note, he and one of my friends are apparently quite close. Although he does study in the UK now.

[EvangelionZeta]

I second kyzoo's theory.  Also adding that the people I know who do extremely well in competitions (eg. Dana Ma...) regard VCE Mathematics as a bit a joke.

[appianway]

I think a lot of high achieving students in multiple domains regard their respective VCE subjects as a joke...

[TrueTears]

I second kyzoo's theory.  Also adding that the people I know who do extremely well in competitions (eg. Dana Ma...) regard VCE Mathematics as a bit a joke.

VCE Mathematics does offer many things which competition Maths does not have and vice versa. Both are important.

[Ilovemathsmeth]

I did well in both Methods and Further, but I don't do exceptionally well in competitions. I think the Maths is different? I was concerned about it a long time ago, then decided it wasn't worth it. I think competition Maths is more fun and just gets you more exposure to different Maths.

[TrueTears]

Different areas of maths indeed. Competition I guess is more "pure", VCE is more "applied"

[humph]

Different areas of maths indeed. Competition I guess is more "pure", VCE is more "applied"

Hmmm, I wouldn't really say that; they're both somewhere in between.

[jimmy999]

I only ever did the Westpac Maths competition and my results would vary for it. My best result was in year 11 when I got into the top 1%. However in year 12 I got into the top 10%. I guess I was just a lot more suited to VCE maths than competition maths

[the.watchman]

I guess to do VCE maths well, you don't really need much problem solving skills, like you do in comp maths.
VCE is more about repetition of similar questions

[Ilovemathsmeth]

Yeah I used to get distinction for the Westpac competition but that was about it. I reckon I was more suited to VCE maths in any case. In addition you can actually study for VCE maths unlike competition maths or can you study for that too??

[NE2000]

You can technically study for the AMC, but it's really just doing a lot of questions of the type and getting your mind sorted so that you sort of know what to look for. I do agree that the emphasis on combinatorics, geometry, number theory etc. is a lot greater in competition maths, which makes it quite different from VCE maths content-wise.

Buy kyzoo is 100% spot on as well. Even in specialist maths, I would guess that most 45+ students (and some below,  like TT) knew the course and in the end they just made careless errors or misinterpreted questions. What I'm trying to say is that they would have covered all areas of the course well enough to approach the exam with confidence of not having any gaps in knowledge. In methods, an even larger proportion of students fall into this category, and I would imagine in further a still larger proportion would fall into this. On the other hand, when you have competitions where most people aren't expected to finish, and only exceptional students can ever gain full marks, then you have a medium in which careless errors become less important and one's ability to 'see the answer' (which I think can be trained, it's not just natural talent or something) comes more and more into play.

[appianway]

I definitely think you can increase your ability to 'see the answer'. I was doing a lot of maths problem solving in year 8, and although I didn't do as well on the Westpac as I'd hoped (I'd made something like one mistake on the past paper we did for practise, but then I only got a HD + a prudence award, which is still good in the scheme of things... in my opinion), I was able to solve problems quickly and accurately. Then in year 9 maths at school seemed to be a lot more formulaic, and I wasn't able to problem solve as effectively anymore. I know it doesn't affect others to the same degree as me, but it truly did make a significant difference in my case.

I also know that in physics, it's quite similar. My problem solving skills improved dramatically over the summer school: I was exposed to questions much harder than the NQE, I saw a variety of questions, and most importantly, I did a lot of them. I would be verryyy surprised if someone who attended the summer school one year (for maths of a science) didn't make it again the next (if they were eligible) - you improve so much with experiences like those.

Edit: Just clearing things up, I don't usually do well in the AMC. Each year it's invariably my worst competition result, possibly due to my laziness with the questions, but even so, I'm not a guru at all when it comes to maths competitions.

[GerrySly]

Lol, Dana was sick when she did the second day paper, but she's actually pretty good. Whoa, how on earth did Andrew EP get a 43? Which year did he do Specialist Maths in?

2009