Mathematics

Staying With the Hard Problems

What I love most in Math is geometry.

An equilateral triangle folded inside a square, and you have to find the shaded region between them. Three squares of different sizes placed side by side, and a single line that cuts the figure perfectly in half.

A hexagon where all the interior angles are 120 degrees, and you have to find the perimeter using only the sides you can see.

These problems do not give up their answers easily. They ask you to look from a different angle and try a different approach.

Math Olympiads taught me something important. They taught me how to stay with a hard problem.

I have competed in SASMO, NMOS, APMOS, and the Australian Mathematics Competition. I was awarded a Bronze at NMOS.

Most things worth understanding do not come easily. That is what Olympiad Math has built in me. It is what keeps me practising a piano piece past the point where it feels impossible.

I am not afraid of hard problems.Those are usually the ones worth solving.

Explaining the question to my sister and my mum. If you can’t explain it, you don’t know it.