March 15th 2019
A mathematically challenging day at Oxford University
Morgan P and Sam C, both Year 8s, told us about the competition:
The first round was general maths. Most of the other rounds had twists to them but the closest this had to a twist was that you worked in a team. Personally, I enjoyed this round because when you were stuck, and this happened often, you always had someone else to ask for help or ask them to give you the answer. There were 10 questions of varying difficulty which meant that if you were properly stuck you could move onto the next question if you wanted to and put that question back in the “to be answered” pile.
The second round had a comparatively new idea, it was a cross number. For anyone who doesn’t know what this it is a cross word, but with numbers. My main annoyance about this was the clues, the game itself was really enjoyable. The clues commonly asked for another answer and sometimes the clue would need a question answer from another question to do it that you can’t work out without the original answer. The one thing that they did that helped this is that the teachers would mark your work as you went along. This meant that you could guess numbers and be told if they were right before the end of the task.
In round three our team participated in the ‘Shuttle Run’ where we were split into pairs and had to answer a question that used the answer the other team had given us. There were four sections with a maximum amount of fifteen marks and if you completed within six minutes you received three bonus marks, if all answers were correct.
Round four was the ‘Relay’ round where once again we were in pairs, however one pair was placed at the other side of the room. All of the teachers were lined up along the wall and had the answers to the questions we were answering. If you got the answer to the question, you would take it up to your teacher and if it was correct, they would give you a question for the other team to answer. There were fifteen questions for each pair and a forty-five minute timer.
Overall our team really enjoyed the day and loved looking around Oxford University. We also enjoyed the competitive aspect of the day and found that as a motive to keep on going.
