RP students dominate Math tilt

[stopandpop]

RP students dominate Math tilt (http://www.philstar.com/index.php?Headlines&p=49&type=2&sec=24&aid=20070717154)
By Rainier Allan Ronda
Wednesday, July 18, 2007


Filipino high school students harvested three team awards and nine individual awards, including a first honor medal for a Philippine Science High School student, at the Po Leung Kuk 11th Primary Mathematics World Contest in Hong Kong last Monday.

Dr. Simon Chua, president of the Mathematics Trainers Guild-Philippines, announced that Amiel Sy, a student of the Philippine Science High School, got a perfect score to become one of the first honor winners in the math quiz.

Chua said that the Philippines last won a first honor award in the Po Leung Kuk contest eight years ago.

Other individual winners were Carmela Antonette Lao and Vance Go of St. Jude Catholic School; Matthew Ng of Chiang Kai Shek College; Miguel Sebastian Santos of Paref Southridge School, and Niel Benjamin Kho of San Beda College-Alabang who won second honors.

Geovin Dexter Uy and Henry Jefferson Morco of Chiang Kai Shek College, and Arvin Wilson Alba of Philippine Science High School won third honors.

In the group competition, the Philippines-Luzon team composed of Audrey Lao, Kenneth Co, Morco and Santos, won first runner-up in their grouping.

The Philippines-Metro Manila team composed of Lao, Go, Ng and Alba also won second runner-up in their grouping.

Participating teams from all countries were grouped into four. This team also won a merit award for overall performance.

The team leaders and deputy team leaders of the Philippine delegation are Richelda Villame, supervisor Adoracion Villanueva from the Department of Education-Region 9, Carlo Nerecena, Vergel Rebuta, and Eugenia Guerra.

“We are very proud that these students have brought honor to our country. This only means that Filipino students can compete and win in world competitions,” said Chua, the lone Filipino recipient of the Paul Erdos Award, conferred on him last year.

Other students in the Philippine team are Keefe Tan, Joanna Santelices, Sarah Jane Cua, Neil Jordan Chua Goy and Cathlyna Saavedra.

The contest drew 44 teams from 12 countries and territories. Aside from the Philippines, teams from the United States, Mexico, India, China, Macau, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, Singapore, Taiwan and Australia also competed.

Po Leung Kuk, a welfare and education sponsoring body in Hong Kong that runs 105 educational units from kindergarten to college, Hong Kong Institute of Education, and Panda Hotel in Tsuen Wan, sponsored the contest.

The advisors of the contest are Angel Chan Lau, chairman of the board of PLK Schools; and Dr. Eric Poon Kin Keung, Chan Kong and Han Ngai Sze of the Hong Kong Institute of Education; and Ping Ng Chun, former organizing committee member.

The members of the organizing committee are Clifton Yeung Kin Chung, Fu Mak Cheung, Ki Shek Yat, Ying ng Kit, Kin Cheung Ping, Kuen Lui Cheuk, Sing Lam Heung and Meng Yeung Veng.

[SUX2BÜ]

Congrats!

Lao, Go, Ng, Tan, Cua, Goy, Co, Uy...

Hmmmm...

:hmm:

[la_flash]

Haha...

I hope we get to win in the WMO too. :D

[fossilFuel]

Congrats!

Lao, Go, Ng, Tan, Cua, Goy, Co, Uy...

Hmmmm...

:hmm:


Filipino nga:confused3:

[boy_wonder]

Sayang lang kasi malayo yan sa average proficiency ng mga Pilipino pagdating sa Math.. In reality, nagdedecline ang galing natin in that subject.

Still, national pride pa rin yan and congrats. Sana i-share niyo ang kaalaman sa ibang mga Pilipino. :)

[la_flash]

^^ Do you have proof to back-up your claim re: "nagdedecline ang galing natin [sa math]"?

[boy_wonder]

Well, in general, the quality of education in our country has drastically declined over the past years.. This is not just a claim, but a reality. :)

[la_flash]

Oh well, I was hoping that you can present aptitude scores of the students on mathematics.

There's a potential for Filipinos to excel in mathematics given a proper training.

[boy_wonder]

Seeing the actual figures would just make us cry.. Heard about the NCAE? The results showed that not even half of this year's high school graduates are egible to attend college when in fact the tests (Math, Science etc.) were all about basic education and were bloody easy.

I also believe we're an intelligent lot of people and we have the potential to learn and excel. Though brainpower defects are sometimes the case, the system is liable for such poor performance on the whole.

[quents]

^miseducation and poor quality education.

hay.

[math_techie]

are we declining in mathematics? yes. I don't want to reminisce a world wide survey placing us near the tail-end of a list of about 50 countries.

Do we have a chance to improve mathematical aptitude in this country, to the point of winning the IMO in a consistent basis? Yes, but not in our lifetime. We can develop the mathematical aptitude of our students if we give them proper training. But will this make us excel? Not still.

What is lacking in our country is the development of a culture of mathematics. There is no "Philippine Mathematics". Our source of mathematics are the westerners. We teach math to our young ones using a language that is not familiar to them. Our notion of mathematics ends at arithmetic, since this is the only kind of math that we would be using in our daily lives. Aside from scientists, ilan ba ang gumagamit ng calculus dito sa Pilipinas for practical purposes? Dito sa Pilipinas, a math major is defined to be someone who is good in adding, multiplying and dividing large numerals. This is happening, because people don't know what mathematics really is.

It is good that some kids are excelling in mathematics in world wide competitions, pero with lagi na lang bang ganito na papatak-patak lang ang tagumpay?

[pumpysworld]

Also, you can probably look for results of various tests given locally, including NEAT, NSAT, NCEE, board exams, etc.

[p1215]

First, we should congratulate the kids for brining home something from the Po Leung Kuk 11th Primary Mathematics World Contest.

However accepting the following statement “We are very proud that these students have brought honor to our country. This only means that Filipino students can compete and win in world competitions,” requires a leap of faith.

To put things in perspective, students from the Philippines have been winning awards from various mathematics competitions held abroad. However, the Philippine performance in the IMO - the pinnacle of school mathematics competitions leaves much to be desired. In the IMO, approximately 1/12th, 2/12th, and 3/12th of the students receive Gold, Bronze, and Silver medals respectively. A Bronze medal means, a student is in the upper half etc. A student who gets a perfect score in 1 of the 6 problems but who ranks in the lower half is awarded an Honorable Mention. The last time the Philippines won a medal in the IMO was way back in 1995. The Philippines gets Honorable Mentions occsionally - but then again HM means lower half.

For a summary of the IMO results of the Philippines. Go here http://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.asp?code=PHI

In summary. I believe that we should congratulate the kids but lets remember that it's an incremental achievement and that the quest for respectability in the IMO will be long and ardous.

When some of this kids finally put an end to the medal drought in the IMO, then maybe we can celebrate a little.

But then that's just an initial step because we know that tiny Singapore consistently finishes in the top 20% of the unofficial IMO team standing. Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia have been consistently doing much better in the past 10 years.
When we beat Singapore for three or more consecutive IMOs we can celebrate a little more.

But until that happens it will be good for the students, the mathematics trainers, and all stakeholders to keep pushing beyond their crespective comfort zones.

[SUX2BÜ]

Magagaling talaga ang mga Tsino sa math.

:)

[math_techie]

First, we should congratulate the kids for brining home something from the Po Leung Kuk 11th Primary Mathematics World Contest.

However accepting the following statement “We are very proud that these students have brought honor to our country. This only means that Filipino students can compete and win in world competitions,” requires a leap of faith.

To put things in perspective, students from the Philippines have been winning awards from various mathematics competitions held abroad. However, the Philippine performance in the IMO - the pinnacle of school mathematics competitions leaves much to be desired. In the IMO, approximately 1/12th, 2/12th, and 3/12th of the students receive Gold, Bronze, and Silver medals respectively. A Bronze medal means, a student is in the upper half etc. A student who gets a perfect score in 1 of the 6 problems but who ranks in the lower half is awarded an Honorable Mention. The last time the Philippines won a medal in the IMO was way back in 1995. The Philippines gets Honorable Mentions occsionally - but then again HM means lower half.

For a summary of the IMO results of the Philippines. Go here http://www.imo-official.org/country_team_r.asp?code=PHI

In summary. I believe that we should congratulate the kids but lets remember that it's an incremental achievement and that the quest for respectability in the IMO will be long and ardous.

When some of this kids finally put an end to the medal drought in the IMO, then maybe we can celebrate a little.

But then that's just an initial step because we know that tiny Singapore consistently finishes in the top 20% of the unofficial IMO team standing. Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia have been consistently doing much better in the past 10 years.
When we beat Singapore for three or more consecutive IMOs we can celebrate a little more.

But until that happens it will be good for the students, the mathematics trainers, and all stakeholders to keep pushing beyond their crespective comfort zones.

i agree na commendable nga yung mga bata. Pero I also agree na this does not say anything on the level of mathematical awareness in our country.

[p1215]

Commendable nga yung mga bata at baka nga promising. (Pag nakapasok sila sa upper half ng rankings sa IMO pag panahon na nila, tatanggalin ko yung "baka".)

Problema din nga yung level ng math awareness. At ang isang indication ng kababaan ng level of math awareness ay yung coverage ng media. Yung bang halos walang distinction between IMO (na mathematical depth at creative problem solving ang emphasis) at yung ibang competitions tulad ng PLK, Euclid, ARML competition etc kung saan masasabi mong medyo may aptitude yung mga kalahok mula sa ibang bansa pero hindi talaga yung best of the best. Pero siguro di mo rin masisi yung media dahil 1.) kailangan nating ng feel good stories paminsan-minsan at 2.) mahihirapan ang pangkaraniwang taga-media na ma-appreciate ang isang magandang mathematical proof .

Ang IMO pala ay mula July 19 hanggang 31, 2007 sa Hanoi, Vietnam. May Philippine Team uli -at sana matapos ang drought.

[tnorth5000]

Most of our participants in the IMO Math Olympiad are in the 14-17 years age range . We are handicapped by 2 years . Other contestants have longer high shool education up to Grade 12 in the US and others.
I dont know Vietnam but they are consistently sending winners . China,US and Japan too. Phillipines should send up to contestant even
from second year college students.

[la_flash]

If you will notice, the questions in IMO are so hard that I think only college students can answer them. :lol:

[math_techie]

If you will notice, the questions in IMO are so hard that I think only college students can answer them. :lol:

even college students that does not have the "correct" mathematical backround won't be able to just answer the IMO problems, unless super exceptional sila.

I don't know how we train our contestants for the IMO, MSP yata ang humahawak sa kanila.

[p1215]

Most of our participants in the IMO Math Olympiad are in the 14-17 years age range . We are handicapped by 2 years . Other contestants have longer high shool education up to Grade 12 in the US and others.
I dont know Vietnam but they are consistently sending winners . China,US and Japan too. Phillipines should send up to contestant even
from second year college students.

1. It’s true that our contestants are younger by about two years and this can be a handicap. Being world class, however, is about doing well in spite of the odds.

It is probably unrealistic to expect a team of relatively younger students to come up on top year after year after year. But it is reasonable to expect that occasionally a 16 or 17 year old wins a medal. As of 2005, more than 230 IMO contestants have won medals in 3 different Olympiads – what this means is that all these students won their first IMO medal at the age of 17 or younger because the IMO age limit is 19. Terence Tao won a Bronze Medal at the age of 11, a Silver Medal at the age of 12, and a Gold medal at the age of 13.

Wyant Chan of the Philippines won his first Bronze at the age of 13. From the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s the Philippines won 1 Silver and 6 Bronze medals. These students were in the 13 – 17 year age range.

2. Other countries have a longer high school education but sending second year university students will probably not help because: 1) It’s against the IMO regulations, and 2.) Even if it’s not against the IMO regulations an additional two years will not help if those two years are not spent by the students immersing themselves in the culture of creative problem solving as typified by the mathematics olympiads and mathematical circles.

3. One thing that disturbs me about our IMO performance is that it has been deteriorating over the years in both absolute terms and relative terms (i.e. compared to our nearest neighbors in ASEAN. Note the improvement in the performances of Indonesia and Thailand. I have not included Malaysia because as of 2005 it has participated only i12 times in IMO while Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia have participated 30, 19, 18, 18, and 18 times respectively.


Consider the following data:

Comparison of Philippine performance for 1988-1996 and 1997-2005
1988 -1996 Awards:0G+ 1S + 6B + 4H, Average score of students: 7.061/42
1997-2005 Awards:0G + 0S +0B + 6H, Average score of students: 3.595/42

Comparison of Philippine performance with neighboring coutries from 1988-1996
Vietnam 11G+26S+13B+0H, Average score of students: 27.833/42
Singapore: 1G+9S+20B+7H, Average score of students: 17.093/42
Thailand: 0G+3S+12B+9H, Average score of students: 12.271/42
Philippines: 0G+1S+6B+4H, Average score of students: 7.061/42
Indonesia: 0G+0S+1B+7H, Average Score of students: 5.079/42


Comparison of Philippine performance with neighboring countries from 1997-2005
Vietnam 18G+26S+9B+1H, Average score of students: 27.833/42
Thailand: 2G+13S+24B+10H, Average score of students: 17.649/42
Singapore: 0G+12S+26B+7H, Average score of students: 16.556/42
Indonesia: 0G+1S+9B+12H, Average Score of students: 8.189/42
Philippines: 0G+0S+0B+6H, Average score of students: 3.595/42

Notes:
Highest possible individual score in the IMO is 42
G = Gold (student is in upper 1/12th)
S=Silver (student is in upper 1/4th)
B = Bronze (student is in upper ½)
H = Honorable Mention (student is in lower half but was able to get a perfect score in at least 1 problem)

If we need to “explain away” our decline relative to our neighbors, we can with some amount of stretching always invoke the “two years younger” excuse. But I don’t see how the “two years younger” excuse can be used to explain the deterioration in performance of the Philippine IMO teams of 1997 – 2005 compared to 1988-1996. Or maybe we should begin by acknowledging that we have problem and then try to find out what Thailand and Indonesia have been doing to improve their IMO performance in the past decade.

[ubermensch]

ang nagta-train sa imo participants ng pilipinas, pem ng ateneo math department. pero kulang sa resources kaya napakahirap. pati pamasahe eh pamilya ng mga contestants ang sumasagot.

pero this year nagtulong-tulong ang dost (finally, may funding), msp, pem, mtap, mtg at iba pang sponsors. i'd say mas napaghandaan ang training ngayon for imo sa vietnam, pero we need to understand na dapat consistent ang support if we want to improve our imo standing. ngayon malapit lang ang vietnam so hindi mahirap pondohan. next year malayo, sa spain.

[boy_wonder]

Ganito pala yung mga klase ng tanong sa IMO:
__________
47-th International Mathematical Olympiad

First Day – July 12

1. Let ABC be a triangle with incenter I. A point P in the interior of the triangle satisfies \PBA + \PCA = \PBC + \PCB.
Show that AP  AI, and that equality holds if and only if P = I.

2. Let P be a regular 2006-gon. A diagonal of P is called good if its endpoints divide the boundary of P into two parts, each composed of an odd number of sides of P. The sides of P are also called good.
Suppose P has been dissected into triangles by 2003 diagonals, no two of which have a common point in the interior of P. Find the maximum number of isosceles triangles having two good sides that could appear in such a configuration.

3. Determine the least real number M such that the inequality

ab(a2 − b2) + bc(b2 − c2) + ca(c2 − a2)
  M(a2 + b2 + c2)2
holds for all real numbers a, b and c.

Second Day – July 13

4. Determine all pairs (x, y) of integers such that
1 + 2x + 22x+1 = y2.

5. Let P(x) be a polynomial of degree n > 1 with integer coefficients
and let k be a positive integer. Consider the polynomial Q(x) =
P(P(. . . P(P(x)) . . . )), where P occurs k times. Prove that there are at most n integers t such that Q(t) = t.

6. Assign to each side b of a convex polygon P the maximum area of a triangle that has b as a side and is contained in P. Show that the sum of the areas assigned to the sides of P is at least twice the area of P.
__________

:confused: Hindi kasi ganyan ang approach sa high school Math dito sa Pilipinas..

Philippines' rankings in the past 18 stagings of the IMO, excluding last year's since we did not send a team:
44,43,48,42,44,52,53,65,74,73,70,73,70,75,74,79,79,68

which put us somewhere below the list.

[tearl]

IMO is the ultimate guage
other competitions are for minor leagues

[math_techie]

ang nagta-train sa imo participants ng pilipinas, pem ng ateneo math department. pero kulang sa resources kaya napakahirap. pati pamasahe eh pamilya ng mga contestants ang sumasagot.

pero this year nagtulong-tulong ang dost (finally, may funding), msp, pem, mtap, mtg at iba pang sponsors. i'd say mas napaghandaan ang training ngayon for imo sa vietnam, pero we need to understand na dapat consistent ang support if we want to improve our imo standing. ngayon malapit lang ang vietnam so hindi mahirap pondohan. next year malayo, sa spain.

feeling ko hindi lang sa training proper ang pinaghahandaan kung gusto natin na maging consistent sa IMO. It should also involve a total change in the math curriculum of schools. Kung 4th year HS ang pinapadala natin, it should start from 1st year.

Schools that consistently win in the PMO (Chinese schools and Science HS) in my opinion should lead in this change in curriculum para may magsimula. I think they can do it since they have the best math students so baka kaya nila.

[stopandpop]

special mention yung mga students sa SONA.

[p1215]

IMO2007 Results

Top 10 Countries
Russia 184/252 5G+1S+0B+0H
China 168/252 4G+2S+0B+0H
Vietnam 168/252 3G+3S+0B+0H
S. Korea 168/252 2G+4S+0B+0H
United States 155/252 2G+3S+1B+0H
Ukraine 154/252 3G+1S+2B+0H
Japan 154/252 2G+4S+0B+0H
N.Korea 151/252 1G+4S+0B+1H
Bulgaria 149/252 2G+3S+1B+0H
Taiwan 149/252 2G+3S+1B+0H

Philippines
Total Score, Awards: 21/252, 0G+0S+0B+1H
Unofficial Rank: #84 out of 94 countries
Individual Scores for 6 problems:

Code P1+P2+P3+P4+P5+P6 Rank Award
PHI1 0/7+0/7+0/7+1/7+0/7+0/7=1/42 #482-505 out of 526
PHI2 0/7+0/7+0/7+7/7+0/7+0/7=7/42 #402-429 out of 526 Honorable Mention (Perfect Score in Problem 4***)
PHI3 0/7+1/7+0/7+2/7+0/7+0/7=3/42 #454-463 out of 526
PHI4 0/7+1/7+0/7+3/7+0/7+0/7=4/42 #447-453 out of 526
PHI5 1/7+1/7+0/7+1/7+0/7+0/7=3/42 #454-463 out of 526
PHI6 0/7+2/7+0/7+0/7+1/7+0/7=3/42 #454-463 out of 526
***Jonathan Aldric Chua

Comparison with neighboring countries:

Total Scores
Vietnam 168/252
Thailand 133/252
Singapore 87/252
Indonesia 69/252
Malaysia 34/252
Cambodia* 26/168
Philippines 21/252
*Cambodia sent only 4 out of maximum 6 students


Rank based on total score (out of 94 teams)
Vietnam 2.5
Thailand 14
Singapore 36
Indonesia 53
Malaysia 75.5
Cambodia* 82
Philippines 84
*Cambodia sent only 4 out of maximum 6 students



Awards
Vietnam 3G+3S+0B+0H
Thailand 1G+3S+2B+0H
Singapore 0G+0S+5B+0H
Indonesia 0G+1S+0B+4H
Malaysia 0G+0S+1B+2H
Cambodia* 0G+0S+0B+3H
Philippines 0G+0S+0B+1H
*Cambodia sent only 4 out of maximum 6 students


Prizes Awarded: 39G+83S+131B+149H=402

[tuvwxyz]

^ Kulelat sa SEA. Waaaah.

[ubermensch]

Ganito pala yung mga klase ng tanong sa IMO:
__________
47-th International Mathematical Olympiad

(see above)

__________

:confused: Hindi kasi ganyan ang approach sa high school Math dito sa Pilipinas..

Philippines' rankings in the past 18 stagings of the IMO, excluding last year's since we did not send a team:
44,43,48,42,44,52,53,65,74,73,70,73,70,75,74,79,79,68

which put us somewhere below the list.

kahit rin naman sa ibang countries, hindi ganyan ang approach sa high school math.

IMO is the ultimate guage
other competitions are for minor leagues

right *okay*

feeling ko hindi lang sa training proper ang pinaghahandaan kung gusto natin na maging consistent sa IMO. It should also involve a total change in the math curriculum of schools. Kung 4th year HS ang pinapadala natin, it should start from 1st year.

Schools that consistently win in the PMO (Chinese schools and Science HS) in my opinion should lead in this change in curriculum para may magsimula. I think they can do it since they have the best math students so baka kaya nila.

well, depende sa change. anyway, i don't think we should change the curriculum for the imo. for one thing, this would involve changing the math curriculum being studied by everybody else, when we're only sending at most 6 students to the imo. the imo is not a gauge of how well students in general from a certain country are performing mathematically (although we could surmise a positive correlation between a country's imo performance and its "general" performance). i think the imo is more meant to test the best of the best from each country. for our general studentry, what we could do for now is make sure the current math curriculum is being taught well. a better curriculum is not effective if it can't be taught well enough.

the results show we need more training. it's not just a few months of training, but years of training. this would involve resources. government and private support will go a long way. grade school students who show a lot of potential must be trained really well, especially since performing well in the imo depends more on one's mathematical maturity (i.e. exposure to "imo-type" problems) rather than on one's high school level.

we're trying to do that, i believe. again, it's just that it takes a while for the positive results to come in. and we didn't have resources channeled to support our previous imo preparation. a little more than 10 years ago, it seems that we were at par with thailand (imo-wise). now, they've overtaken us by leaps and bounds. i believe that support for their efforts (preparation) have been consistent for them. they probably have more trainers, more training sessions, etc. and thus the students and team leaders can focus more on just preparing for the competition.

the mtg trains students and sends them to other competitions. but i believe it's the parents who shoulder their kids' airfares. it's also been the case with our imo participation for a long time, until this year. kinda sad, isn't it? well i'm happy the parents of our imo kids this year didn't have to shell our for the airfare to vietnam. i'm just hoping that it would be same next year, because the imo will be in madrid, spain.

[math_techie]

^ if a change in curriculum is not possible, I think the 2nd best way is for us to train potential math olympians way beyond they join the competition. They should be trained for years. Kung ganito ang approach, then each private/science school could develop a pool of 1st year students, that they would be willing to train, and that should be willing to be trained.

It would take a lot of sacrifice for the students if they really want to excel in the IMO. I believe, that there would always be teachers who will be willing to train, but the question is, are there students who are willing to be trained?

[p1215]

bump bump bump