Achieving exceptional marks in an olympiad is a great feeling, it gives your confidence a boost to know that you are academically smart and knowledgeable. You feel capable of being smart and it deepens your interest in whatever subject you had scored well in. Olympiads are conducted for every subject and you can appear for them if you want to.
To appear for the IMO exam you must ask your teacher about tentative dates of the release of the olympiad form, then you will need to register for the olympiad. After registering you can start your preparation. Preparing for the exam is the most important step for competing in an olympiad.
The steps for preparation are simple. First, you must get the syllabus for the maths olympiad, it is the beginning step of your preparation. Going through the syllabus will tell you where you should start your preparation from. After going through the syllabus you can make a list of the topics that you need to prepare and a list of the topics that you already know. Then, you can start preparing for the topics that you don’t know anything about and keep revising the topics that you already know. IN olympiads, it is important to get an in-depth knowledge of every topic, because you know that difficulty level can be higher than what you are used to, so don’t leave any room for errors or mistakes and give your best.
You can also discuss your preparation with your teachers, they would have probably assisted others before to prepare for the olympiad and they can do the same for you as well. You can take your teacher’s help for preparing for difficult topics asking them for tips to solve difficult questions related to that topic.
You can also discuss your preparation with your friends and your seniors. Talking to your friends will be helpful as they would be facing issues that are similar to yours and you can help each other in preparing for the math olympiad. You can talk to your seniors as well, as they must have appeared for the maths olympiad before and they must have some tips that could help you in your preparation. You can ask them to share their experience and what mistakes they made, you can learn from the errors of their ways and make sure that you don’t repeat the same mistakes yourself.
Your seniors could also help you b sharing their question papers from when they appeared for the maths olympiad, you can practice on that paper and that will prepare you for your upcoming maths olympiad.
Another way to get practice papers is to go online to download sample papers from the internet, you can get any paper from any year such as the Class 6 IMO Question Paper 2015 and you can practice using that paper. Make sure to adhere to the time limit of the paper and use a stopwatch to keep yourself accountable.
Practicing using these papers will be helpful because you will be able to understand the pattern of your question paper for the maths olympiad. Moreover, you will also be able to understand the depth level of the questions that will be asked, this way you can know how deeply you should prepare for a particular topic. You can also learn to stay within a time limit with the help of the practice papers.
Staying within the time limit is very important while you attempt an olympiad, as running out of time will cause you problems which might lead you to lose some marks. While preparing for the exam, work on your question-solving skills as well, to achieve this, you can learn to solve questions using simple mental tricks. This way, you will save a lot of time as you won’t need to solve all the questions on paper using a pen, which wastes a lot of time. Learning these time-saving tricks will help you in the future as well, when you appear for your school exam or when you reach some higher classes.
Along with sample papers, you can find preparation material online. Various bloggers write educational content, you can read their blogs to find some ways to make your olympiad preparation easier and more effective. You can also read articles in some educational magazines or watch some educational videos for the same purpose.
After you are through with your preparation and you have practiced all that you have studied, you are ready to appear for the olympiad.
Before you go to the examination center, remember to check a few things. The most important thing to carry is your admit card, do not forget that at any cost. You should also read the rules of the olympiad before you go to the exam hall, this helps you in being extra prepared for the maths olympiad. You should read the list of things that you are allowed to carry with you and should only take those with you, the list includes the types and colors of pens and pencils that are acceptable in the olympiad.
You should try to figure out how to fill out an OMR sheet, you will be required to fill out your details as well as the answers on an OMR sheet, you must do it perfectly and make no mistakes. As the OMR sheet is a confusing sheet of paper, it can lead students to make silly mistakes such as marking the wrong answer. You must avoid all these mistakes.
While attempting the paper, you must remember to be extremely careful, you should not get distracted by what others are doing. Remember to keep looking at the clock so that you can keep yourself within the time limit. You should not waste your time on a single difficult question, if you are not able to attempt the question you can leave it and solve other questions, in the end, remember to revise all the answers that you have filled in.
