The Intermediate Maths Challenge is an hour long paper aimed at pupils in year 11 or below. The challenge contains 25 difficult multiple choice questions, that require students to not only think carefully, but also to think outside of the box. The top 40% of performers around the country receive certificates for their efforts, and these are either bronze, silver, or gold (gold being the hardest to achieve). They are usually given out in the ratio of 3:2:1. Furthermore, the top 5,500 performers are invited to take part in a follow up round, known as the Intermediate Kangaroo. And if even that is not a big enough achievement, the top 500 scorers take part in a grueling 3 hour long exam, known as the British Mathematical Olympiad.

In years 9, 10 and 11 of Tiffin Boys’ School, 130 pupils were selected to take part in the challenge on Thursday the 6th of February 2014. As expected, the challenge proved to be very interesting, and also mind-numbingly infuriating at times due to its difficulty. However, a couple of weeks later the boys received their marks back, and the majority were pleasantly surprised. 49 pupils managed to achieve a gold certificate, placing them roughly into the top 6% of the country. Head of mathematics at the school, Alistair Ingall, was quoted as saying (to the students), “As a school we did well, with more golds and more qualifiers for the follow on rounds than in recent years so thank you for all your efforts”. Not only that, 7 boys managed to achieve the prestigious honour of being invited to take part in the Olympiad (with many more being invited to the Kangaroo). Special mention should go out to Navonil Neogi, a boy in year 8 who took the challenge and managed to get into the Olympiad. I certainly look forward to seeing how he will do when he is in year 11!

Overall, the performance in this year's challenge was of a very high standard and should be commended. We all now eagerly looking forward to finding out how students did in the challenge's follow-up rounds.

By Kian Hatamieh