UKMT Senior Kangaroo 2017

Three sixth form students at Bacup & Rawtenstall Grammar School recently proved themselves to be among the best young mathematicians in the United Kingdom.

Mark (Year 12), Jack and Louis (both Year 13) were invited to sit the Senior Kangaroo paper as a result of their excellent performance in the individual challenge in November, when they scored the highest marks of all the BRGS competitors.

This paper is taken by over 6,500 students nationally and qualification for it really is an excellent achievement.

We were delighted that Louis achieved a Merit certificate in this challenge, while Jack and Mark were both awarded Qualification certificates.

Louis received a Qualification certificate last year, so he has gone one better in his final year at BRGS!

The Senior Kangaroo is a 20-question paper which tests many different parts of Maths in more abstract ways than students will be used to in their lessons and exam papers. While the Individual Senior Challenge is a multiple-choice paper, the Kangaroo requires answers to be worked out without five options to check them against.

One of the questions was:

All three-digit positive integers whose digit sum is 5 are listed in ascending order. What is the median of this list?

Maths teacher Mr Wilbraham, who organises the Challenge, said: “The Individual Senior Challenge is a tough test in itself, but the Senior Kangaroo takes things up to a different level. The questions require independent thinking and analysis, in particular the ability to return to the start of a problem when you come up against a brick wall. Having no options or ‘Show that’ type of questions adds an extra level of difficulty that requires a certain degree of Mathematical aptitude and diligence to overcome. I admire the three boys for getting through to this paper and would particularly like to congratulate Louis for doing so well and achieving a Merit certificate.”

Pictured, from left to right, are Mark, Louis and Jack.