Stephen Wang
Get ready to hear the story of our school’s glory while competing in the Waterloo Math Contest! From the BC Program of Luwan Senior High School – Milia and Toshua, who not only participated but also achieved an impressive score of 36/40 in the Hypatia contest and brought honor to our school.
The Waterloo Math Contest, a world-renowned competition, is hosted by the University of Waterloo in Canada. Each year it attracts many students from around the world to attend this contest. It includes several different competition categories, each targeted at students of different grades and levels. For example, the Galois is primarily for 10th graders, while Hypatia and Euclid are for 11th and 12th graders. This contest is highly approved globally and considered as one of the most important competitions to measure students’ mathematical abilities. Both Toshua and Milia made the most challenging choice, because they chose to do not one, but two contests: the Hypatia and Euclid contests, prepared for the genius grade 11 and 12 math students. Hypatia primarily involves sequences, algebra, and basic trigonometry, while Euclid covers even more challenging issues such as number theory, logarithms, geometry, and probability.
So, what’s the key to their excellent performance? Milia shared her preparation strategy, “The first step is understanding the scope of the exam. Secondly, familiarize yourself with the relevant formulas – including those that can be used directly and those that require derivation. The next step is practicing past papers and questions related to specific knowledge points, focusing mainly on your weak areas. For me, that was analytic geometry. Lastly, summarizing specific problem-solving methods helps in solving similar problems during the test.” Hypatia and Euclid cover a broad range of topics, some of which are not even taught in textbooks and require participants to self-study before the competition. Milia’s strategy is like a detailed map and the knowledge and formula in it guides her walk out the maze, ultimately leading her to victory.
Our other participant, Toshua, chose a more direct path to review for the contest. “I just practiced a few sets of past contests to familiarize myself with the questions that appear in the contest” he said. Reviewing past questions can be very useful for this type of competition, even though the competition problems change every year. Toshua’s strategy of becoming familiar with past questions provided him with a comprehensive understanding of the various types of problems and the required methods and prepared him for success.
Milia and Toshua’s victories in the Waterloo Math Contest not only demonstrated their individual talents but also represented the high-quality teaching of the BC Program at Luwan Senior High School. Their success is not only due to their own efforts but also the responsibility and seriousness of the teachers during their class. In conclusion, let us congratulate these two students and our school on their wonderful achievements and hope that their success can inspire future students to learn from their experiences and achieve even better results in future Waterloo Math Contests!