Hong Kong students have ranked within the top 10 teams in the international University of Waterloo Hong Kong Foundation Math Contest this year.
In particular, participants in the Form Four division were able to rank within the top five teams in the world; Pui Ching Middle School in Ho Man Tin ranked third outside Canada, the home country of the competition, and sixth overall globally, out of around 700 schools.
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The contest, which is conducted by the University of Waterloo’s faculty of mathematics, featured 260,000 participants from more than 80 countries. Other local schools such as Diocesan Girls’ School (DGS) and Munsang College received the highest team scores in the city. DGS came eighth in the Form Three division for students outside Canada.
The competition is open to local students from Form Three to Form Five, and is split into the divisions of Fryer for Form Three students, Galois for Form Four, and Hypatia for Form Five; Form Six students can take part in Euclid. Students in each division must solve four questions within 75 minutes.
Athena Chu, a Form Three student from DGS who came 74th out of almost 7,000 students globally in the Fryer division, said she found the questions difficult but stimulating. “This competition is very different from the others I have participated in before. The difficulties of the questions themselves are manageable yet very fun to deal with,” said Athena.
Leung Ka-yan, another DGS Form Three student who participated in the contest, said that the competition is an “opportunity to sharpen mathematic skills while having fun with other friends”.