Year 13 student, Grace Chang is a gifted mathematician. With Covid-19 forcing the postponement of this year’s International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), an online competition was set up to fill the void. The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) partnered with Art of Problem Solving (AoPS) to launch the first-ever Cyberspace Mathematical Competition (CMC).

Each country was invited to put forward a team of up to eight students and Grace was selected as one of six students for the New Zealand team, joining 555 individual contestants from 75 countries taking part in the event! The CMC's mission was to provide an opportunity for the world's top young mathematical students to engage with challenging and interesting problems, and meet—at least virtually— their peers from a wide range countries across the world.

To prepare, the New Zealand team held a joint virtual training camp with the Netherlands during the first week of the holidays, where they sat four mock IMO exams of five hours each to practise for the competition - they also spent a good amount of time playing board games together!

Held entirely online, the actual competition was held over two days, with a five-hour exam comprising four questions each day. Online social events were also held through Discord, allowing the teams to meet and socialise with other students from around the world.

Leader boards kept track of both individual and team performance and by the end of the weekend, China was in the top spot. The New Zealand team were placed in the bronze band and Grace was pleased to receive an individual honourable mention.

How good are you at solving mathematical problems?

Click here to see the problems Grace had to solve!

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