Mount Pleasant Road Primary School & Kindergarten

Australian Mathematics Challenge

Written by Lachie & Shane

The Mathematics Challenge is designed for students in Grade 3 - 10. Each student was given a booklet with 16 problems in it, 4 in each section (Upper Primary or U.P.). Each U.P. is based on a topic like near-square rectangles or zipline numbers. A calculator is allowed as none of the questions can be solved using one. Here is an example of UP1, UP2, UP3. UP1 is about zipline numbers, a zipline number is a 5 digit number that is in descending order. 4 of the digits are even and one is odd. UP2 is about near-square rectangles where the width is one cm shorter than the length. UP3 is about an irregular/regular hexagon then you add a straight line in between and you have to make the shapes that the question says. UP4 is about mixed up birthdays. Each child has a card with his/her name and four more cards for his/her date. For example if a child's birthday was 17th of September, then it would be (Name) (17/09), the row for that child would be name:X day:(green box) 1 7, month ( yellow box)  0 9. It has been really challenging and fun to complete the Australian Mathematics Challenge.

Student Voice:

  • Vanessa C - "The Maths Challenge was interesting and an exciting experience. I enjoyed working with other people and everyone’s ideas and point of views were all very different and interesting."
  • Arnav C - "The Maths Challenge was fun but hard because we had to figure out the answer but the answer wasn’t in the question. Overall I think it was good."
  • Grace H - "The Maths Challenge is fun but a bit frustrating at times because the questions were hard and involved a lot of problem solving. It was very time consuming because a lot of questions were very confusing and hard to understand but overall I enjoyed it."
  • Lachie S - "The Maths Challenge was very challenging but fun to do, I enjoyed solving UP3 because it took a while to get the hang of it. Overall I think it was really fun and worth it."
  • Manvik R - "One thing I liked about the Maths Challenge there were questions that could be solved with groups and would be fun for us."