Math Olympiad exams aim to nurture and grow mathematics talent in young minds through individual as well as team-based competitions. While the school curriculum is best suited for the majority of students to learn basic mathematical skills, often times the level of knowledge required to pursue advanced studies such as Engineering and advanced Math is higher than what is taught in the regular school curriculum. For instance, the entrance examination conducted at the high school level for students aspiring to become engineers demands higher-order thinking abilities in students. While the syllabus remains the same, the type of problem, thinking patterns and level of complexity is different in these entrance exams and often students find them difficult to crack. 

How Math Olympiads help you excel in competitive exams like JEE, BITSAT ?

International Math Olympiad exams aim to nurture and grow mathematics talent in young minds through individual as well as team-based competitions.This has been the main reason why a student who excels in school academics may not be able to achieve the same level of success in these entrance examinations.

There is another kind of problem students face in Math even as they enter high school or reach upper middle school. This problem is related to the school curriculum. At the elementary and middle school levels, the maths syllabus is formulated such that it ensures the kids spend enough time on various basic math concepts and master these math concepts. This is evident from the fact that the same topics such as Fractions, Number system, Area, Perimeter, etc keep repeating year after year in grades III, IV, V, and VI with increasing level of difficulty so that these concepts are well understood and internalized by students. However, beyond grade VIII, there is a major shift in the syllabus pattern. A lot of new topics (such as Trigonometry, Matrices, Probability, Analytical geometry, Calculus, etc) are introduced in upper-middle school and high school math curriculum with fairly less time to practice and develop mastery compared to the time provided in the elementary and middle school curriculum for a new topic.

While it is well justified that these new topics introduced can be well grasped by a student who is strong in math fundamentals taught in elementary and middle school, the real question is how much focus is given to building the basic concepts in mind very well. Without developing the thinking abilities and problem-solving skills at a fairly young age, upper-middle school and high school students who had experienced math an easy subject all along suddenly begins to struggle with math and grapple with problems demanding higher-order thinking and sometimes even start developing an aversion to mathematics.

Math Olympiad exams help to bridge this gap by creating an avenue where students are challenged to think and apply their concepts to solve more complex math problems right from a very young age. This raises student’s thinking potential and helps them not only pick new math concepts quickly at upper middle school and high school level but also perform very well in engineering entrance examinations and other competitive exams.