'Miracle' of Nghe An boarding school students in TIMO International Mathematical Olympiad

From village to world

Having been in school for less than a year, Nguyen La Vi Na – a Dan Lai ethnic minority student from Con Cuong district never thought that she would be able to go to Thailand to participate in an International Mathematics Competition. That exam was also in English, which was not an advantage for a student whose entrance score in grade 10 English was only 5 points.

Talking about this memory, Vi Na said: I grew up in Mon Son commune since I was a child and only attended primary and secondary school in the commune. Of the three subjects Literature, Math, English, Math was my favorite and I achieved 7.75 points in the entrance exam. However, this result was very modest compared to my friends. I came to this exam, thanks to the encouragement of my teachers and friends, and I did not think that I would win with a Silver Medal.

The team members are all from class 10A1 - Provincial Ethnic Minority High School. Photo: MH

The Thailand International Mathematical Olympiad (TIMO) is organized annually by the Olympiad Champion Education Centre from Hong Kong in cooperation with the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

This is a useful intellectual playground for students who love and are passionate about Mathematics from preschool to high school, aiming to stimulate and nurture the love of Mathematics of young people, enhance students' creative thinking ability, and at the same time expand international cultural exchange relationships.

In the 2022-2023 school year, the TIMO competition will be held for the 9th time in the world and the 4th time in Vietnam. The final round of the competition was recently held in Pattaya, Thailand, and the Provincial Ethnic Minority High School Team is the only representative of Nghe An province to participate in this competition.

The team of the Provincial Ethnic Minority High School participated in the exam in Thailand. Photo: NTCC

Previously, the competition took place in 3 rounds, including the national qualifying round, the national final round and the international final round. The provincial Ethnic Minority High School team participated in this competition with the first group of 14 members. After the rounds, the team had 10 excellent students entering the international round and this was also the school's best achievement in its first participation in this competition.

After 4 days of returning from Thailand, the team members still have not forgotten the emotions of their first time going abroad and competing with nearly 1,000 other students from many countries around the world. Speaking more about this, student Vi Tri Khoa shared: I have many new friends from Thailand and the Philippines. Among them, many of them can speak Thai - and I am confident that I can communicate with about 70% of them in my own language.

An interesting thing that the contestants could not forget this time was when the Organizing Committee read the results. At that time, all the members of the team were excited and hoped to have 2-3 medals to not disappoint the expectations of the Board of Directors. During the award ceremony, the Organizing Committee, in turn, for the first and second time, came to the school team to arrange the position to receive the medal. However, after that, all were mistakes, making teachers and students extremely excited, experiencing many emotions from hope to disappointment.

The TIMO International Mathematical Olympiad brings together many excellent students from many countries around the world. Photo: NTCC

Because of this mistake, when the official moment the organizers called the team name with 9 students winning Silver Medals and 1 student winning Encouragement Prize, everyone was overwhelmed. It was a feeling of victory not only for the contestants themselves but also for the school, for their families and for the "colors" of Nghe An students. 10/10 contestants who won prizes were all students of class 10A1.

Not afraid of challenges

With a low starting point, especially in Foreign Languages, the Provincial Ethnic Minority High School has never been confident in sending a team to participate in the TIMO International Math Olympiad. However, from this school year, under the leadership of young teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh, for the first time the school's Math team has made a miracle.

Previously, teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh was a student at Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted. After graduating from the University of Education, majoring in Mathematics and English, she was recruited to be a Mathematics teacher at the school. After 3 years of working, the International Mathematics Olympiad was also the first time this female teacher "went out" to challenge herself.

In the first competition, the students won 9 Silver Medals and 1 Encouragement Prize.

Talking about the process of establishing and training the team, teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh also shared that she encountered many difficulties. Because, in the team, the student considered to have the most outstanding Math ability compared to his friends is student Luong Quoc Hoang (Thai ethnic - studied at Tra Lan Secondary School - Con Cuong) whose entrance exam score in Math is less than 8 points. Meanwhile, in this exam, students will be tested according to their level of education, high school level and the amount of knowledge will cover grades 10, 11 and 12.

Sharing about this, teacher Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh added: The exam takes place in 3 rounds. In which, the national qualifying round consists of 25 multiple choice questions, to be done within 60 minutes, with bilingual questions in English and Vietnamese. The national final round consists of 25 fill-in-the-blank questions to be done within 90 minutes, with English questions (with Vietnamese subtitles). The international final round consists of 30 fill-in-the-blank questions to be done within 120 minutes, with English questions. The questions in the set are in the fields of logical thinking, arithmetic/algebra, number theory, geometry, and combinations, and the number of questions is divided equally for each field.

In the exam content, there are many contents that the students have not learned in school such as probability combinations and logical thinking, so in the process of training the team, the students have to start from zero.

In addition to basic knowledge of Math, English is also a big challenge. At first, when giving homework to students, teacher Thuy Linh had to transcribe Vietnamese for them. Later, to help students get used to different types of math and specific terminology of Math, Math teachers and English teachers had to coordinate to give them extra tutoring in Foreign Languages.

The Board of Directors of the Provincial Ethnic Minority High School awarded the students who won prizes in the competition. Photo: NTCC

In the process of reaching the final round, the international round, the team members also have to race against time because the members are all 10th graders. From the time they enter school, join the team and compete in the qualifying round, it only lasts a few months. Meanwhile, they still have to complete their school program, participate in mid-term and final exams.

Coming to the international competition, the support of the school's board of directors also created great motivation for the team, especially when the school created conditions for 10 students and 2 teachers to directly train them to compete for nearly a week in Thailand.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Kieu Hoa - Principal of the school also said: For the first time participating in an international competition, the school's board of directors only wanted to create a playground for the school's students to exchange, expand international relationships and encourage them to reach high and far in their studies. That is why, when we received the result that 100% of the team members won prizes, we were really happy. That is a great gift for the school's students to continue to try, be confident in themselves and continue to participate in many other important competitions in the future.