International math competition kangaroo results. Kangaroo - mathematics for everyone
Millions of children in many countries of the world no longer need to be explained what "Kangaroo", is a massive international mathematical competition-game under the motto - " Mathematics for everyone!.
The main goal of the competition is to attract as many children as possible to solving mathematical problems, to show every student that thinking about a problem can be a lively, exciting, and even fun activity. This goal is achieved quite successfully: for example, in 2009, more than 5.5 million children from 46 countries took part in the competition. And the number of competition participants in Russia exceeded 1.8 million!
Of course, the name of the competition is connected with distant Australia. But why? After all, mass mathematical competitions have been held in many countries for decades, and Europe, where the new competition originated, is so far from Australia! The fact is that in the early 80s of the twentieth century, the famous Australian mathematician and teacher Peter Halloran (1931 - 1994) came up with two very significant innovations that significantly changed traditional school Olympiads. He divided all the problems of the Olympiad into three categories of difficulty, and simple problems should have been accessible to literally every schoolchild. In addition, the tasks were offered in the form of a multiple-choice test, focused on computer processing of the results. The presence of simple but entertaining questions ensured wide interest in the competition, and computer testing made it possible to quickly process a large number of works.
The new form of competition turned out to be so successful that in the mid-80s about 500 thousand Australian schoolchildren took part in it. In 1991, a group of French mathematicians, drawing on Australian experience, held a similar competition in France. In honor of our Australian colleagues, the competition was named “Kangaroo”. To emphasize the entertaining nature of the tasks, they began to call it a competition-game. And one more difference – participation in the competition has become paid. The fee is very small, but as a result, the competition ceased to depend on sponsors, and a significant part of the participants began to receive prizes.
In the first year, about 120 thousand French schoolchildren took part in this game, and soon the number of participants grew to 600 thousand. This began the rapid spread of the competition across countries and continents. Now about 40 countries from Europe, Asia and America are participating in it, and in Europe it is much easier to list countries that do not participate in the competition than those where it has been taking place for many years.
In Russia, the Kangaroo competition was first held in 1994 and since then the number of its participants has been growing rapidly. The competition is part of the “Productive Game Competitions” program of the Institute of Productive Education under the leadership of Academician of the Russian Academy of Education M.I. Bashmakov and is supported by the Russian Academy of Education, the St. Petersburg Mathematical Society and the Russian State Pedagogical University. A.I. Herzen. Direct organizational work was undertaken by the Kangaroo Plus Testing Technology Center.
In our country, a clear structure of mathematical Olympiads has long been established, covering all regions and accessible to every student interested in mathematics. However, these Olympiads, from the regional to the All-Russian, are aimed at identifying the most capable and gifted from students who are already passionate about mathematics. The role of such Olympiads in the formation of the scientific elite of our country is enormous, but the vast majority of schoolchildren remain aloof from them. After all, the problems that are offered there, as a rule, are designed for those who are already interested in mathematics and are familiar with mathematical ideas and methods that go beyond the school curriculum. Therefore, the “Kangaroo” competition, addressed to the most ordinary schoolchildren, quickly won the sympathy of both children and teachers.
The competition tasks are designed so that every student, even those who do not like mathematics, or are even afraid of it, will find interesting and accessible questions for themselves. After all, the main goal of this competition is to interest the children, to instill in them confidence in their abilities, and its motto is “Mathematics for everyone.”
Experience has shown that children are happy to solve competition problems, which successfully fill the vacuum between standard and often boring examples from a school textbook and difficult problems of city and regional mathematical olympiads that require special knowledge and training.
The international mathematical competition "Kangaroo" in Belarusian schools was scheduled for March 16, but according to parents who contacted the editorial office of Rebenok.BY, in some institutions it was held the day before, which is unacceptable according to the rules of the competition
Photo source: website
Within a few hours, photos of assignments for first and third grade appeared on the Internet.
According to the information of the applicants, the first graders at the capital's school No. 110 and the third graders of the 39th gymnasium in Minsk solved the Kangaroo task a day earlier than scheduled. While reviewing the assignments with their children, parents noticed that tomorrow’s date was written on the form with the assignments.
Katerina, mother of a third grader:
It turns out that some of the schoolchildren who wrote the competition on March 16 knew the tasks in advance. The children found themselves in unequal conditions.
Director of the NGO "Belarusian Competition Association", which organizes a mathematical competition in Belarus, Gennady Vladimirovich Nekhai commented on the current situation in the following way:
I already had a signal that the competition was held at school 110 earlier, and I talked with the organizer. The organizer explained that these were just training sessions on old tasks. This is always done to prepare children for the competition.
We checked the tasks that appeared on the Internet. They were posted by Ukrainian and Russian participants.
The competition is international and is held simultaneously in all countries. Since the competition is international, the main set of tasks is common. But countries can change some of the tasks at their discretion, as, for example, their Russian colleagues regularly do. But some of them will still match.
Gennady Vladimirovich said that the Belarusian Association immediately informed colleagues in St. Petersburg and Lvov about the information leak.
You understand that there is a human factor everywhere. Some people don’t like to lose and are ready to win by any means necessary.
We have a short description of the rules before each task. And the main stated requirement is honest and independent work. This year the case will be publicized at the General Assembly. This is a disaster for the international association.
For now, I took the word of the organizer at school 110, but everything is so serious that we need to figure it out.
Now, according to Gennady Nekhai, the association is waiting for information from parents about what specific tasks were offered to the children. If the fact of holding the competition ahead of schedule is confirmed, Belarus may be excluded from among its participants.
But Belarus was among the first participating countries and we were always held up as an example,” noted Gennady Nekhai with regret. - This is a scandal of international proportions. Therefore, we would be grateful for any information on this matter.”
March 16, 2017 Grades 3–4. The time allotted for solving problems is 75 minutes!
Problems worth 3 points
№1. Kanga made five addition examples. What is the largest amount?
(A) 2+0+1+7 (B) 2+0+17 (C) 20+17 (D) 20+1+7 (E) 201+7
№2. Yarik marked the path from the house to the lake with arrows on the diagram. How many arrows did he draw incorrectly?
(A) 3 (B) 4 (C) 5 (D) 7 (E) 10
№3. The number 100 was increased by one and a half times, and the result was reduced by half. What happened?
(A) 150 (B) 100 (C) 75 (D) 50 (E) 25
№4. The picture on the left shows beads. Which picture shows the same beads?
№5. Zhenya composed six three-digit numbers from the numbers 2.5 and 7 (the numbers in each number are different). Then she arranged these numbers in ascending order. What number was the third?
(A) 257 (B) 527 (C) 572 (D) 752 (E) 725
№6. The picture shows three squares divided into cells. On the outer squares, some of the cells are painted over, and the rest are transparent. Both of these squares were superimposed on the middle square so that their upper left corners coincided. Which of the figures is still visible?
№7. What is the smallest number of white cells in the picture that must be painted so that there are more painted cells than white ones?
(A) 1 (B) 2 (C) 3 (D) 4 (E)5
№8. Masha drew 30 geometric shapes in this order: triangle, circle, square, rhombus, then again a triangle, circle, square, rhombus, and so on. How many triangles did Masha draw?
(A) 5 (B) 6 (C) 7 (D) 8 (E)9
№9. From the front, the house looks like the picture on the left. At the back of this house there is a door and two windows. What does it look like from behind?
№10. It's 2017 now. How many years from now will the next year be that does not have the number 0 in its record?
(A) 100 (B) 95 (C) 94 (D) 84 (E)83
Objectives, assessment worth 4 points
№11. Balls are sold in packs of 5, 10 or 25 pieces each. Anya wants to buy exactly 70 balls. What is the smallest number of packages she will have to buy?
(A) 3 (B) 4 (C) 5 (D) 6 (E) 7
№12. Misha folded a square piece of paper and poked a hole in it. Then he unfolded the sheet and saw what is shown in the picture on the left. What might the fold lines look like?
№13. Three turtles sit on the path at the dots A, IN And WITH(see picture). They decided to gather at one point and find the sum of the distances they had traveled. What is the smallest amount they could get?
(A) 8 m (B) 10 m (C) 12 m (D) 13 m (E) 18 m
№14. Between the numbers 1 6 3 1 7 you need to insert two characters + and two signs × so that you get the biggest result. What is it equal to?
(A) 16 (B) 18 (C) 26 (D) 28 (E) 126
№15. The strip in the figure is made up of 10 squares with a side of 1. How many of the same squares must be added to it on the right so that the perimeter of the strip becomes twice as large?
(A) 9 (B) 10 (C) 11 (D) 12 (E) 20
№16. Sasha marked a square in the checkered square. It turned out that in its column this cell is the fourth from the bottom and the fifth from the top. In addition, in its row this cell is the sixth from the left. Which one is she on the right?
(A) second (B) third (C) fourth (D) fifth (E) sixth
№17. From a 4 × 3 rectangle, Fedya cut out two identical figures. What kind of figures could he not produce?
№18. Each of the three boys thought of two numbers from 1 to 10. All six numbers turned out to be different. The sum of Andrey’s numbers is 4, Bory’s is 7, Vitya’s is 10. Then one of Vitya’s numbers is
(A) 1 (B) 2 (C) 3 (D) 5 (E)6
№19. Numbers are placed in the cells of a 4 × 4 square. Sonya found a 2 × 2 square in which the sum of the numbers is the largest. What is this amount?
(A) 11 (B) 12 (C) 13 (D) 14 (E) 15
№20. Dima was riding a bicycle along the paths of the park. He entered the park through the gate A. During his walk, he turned right three times, left four times, and turned around once. What gate did he go through?
(A) A (B) B (C) C (D) D (E) the answer depends on the order of turns
Tasks worth 5 points
№21. Several children took part in the race. The number of those who came running before Misha was three times greater than the number of those who came running after him. And the number of those who came running before Sasha is two times less than the number of those who came running after her. How many children could take part in the race?
(A) 21 (B) 5 (C) 6 (D) 7 (E) 11
№22. Some shaded cells contain one flower. Each white cell contains the number of cells with flowers that have a common side or top with it. How many flowers are hidden?
(A) 4 (B) 5 (C) 6 (D) 7 (E) 11
№23. We will call a three-digit number amazing if among the six digits used to write it and the number following it, there are exactly three ones and exactly one nine. How many amazing numbers are there?
(A) 0 (B) 1 (C) 2 (D) 3 (E) 4
№24. Each face of the cube is divided into nine squares (see figure). What is the largest number of squares that can be colored such that no two colored squares have a common side?
(A) 16 (B) 18 (C) 20 (D) 22 (E) 30
№25. A stack of cards with holes is strung on a string (see picture on the left). Each card is white on one side and shaded on the other. Vasya laid out the cards on the table. What could he have done?
№26. A bus leaves from the airport to the bus station every three minutes and takes 1 hour. 2 minutes after the bus departed, a car left the airport and drove 35 minutes to the bus station. How many buses did he overtake?
(A) 12 (B) 11 (C) 10 (D) 8 (E) 7
Sometimes life brings pleasant surprises.
My youngest son was the winner International Mathematical Olympiad "Kangaroo 2016", gaining 100 points. Absolute result.
It is believed that for men, numbers are more important than feelings or emotions.
Therefore, as a man, I should immediately move on to the statistics of the Olympiad, analysis of problems, analysis of solutions...
A little bit later.
And now I won’t lie and in a manly, restrained and dry way I will say:
I'm very pleased. 
Who creates the myths about "masculinity"?
The “majority”, the “gray mass”, which, in the words of Franklin Roosevelt, 32 President of the United States,
"Can neither enjoy from the heart nor suffer
because he lives in gray darkness,
where there are no victories or defeats."
Emotions are the essence human life. Contact with reality, with Life generates emotions. Those who do not feel do not experience emotions.
Such a person is either not alive or an official.
Both my grandfather and my father, who went through the Second World War, sometimes did not hide their emotions when talking about it.
The athlete who won the most difficult struggle does not hide his tears of joy while standing on the podium.
Why should I be a hypocrite? I am very pleased and proud of my son.
School education has completely discredited itself.
The influence of school grades on a child’s fate is minimal or negative. Any a school grade is no more significant to me than the opinion of any member of the “majority”.
But the Olympics are a different reality. Here a child can really show his abilities, will, ability to overcome himself and the desire to win...
Therefore, for the development of a child and the formation of his self-esteem, the Olympiads have a completely different meaning...
100 points is good and pleasant.
But even just participate in the Olympiad, where there is nowhere to copy and no one to ask and... to score these same points more than the “Average” - for a child this is already a victory. An important milestone in its development. First experience of victories. Seeds of success that will inevitably sprout in his adult life.
Providing a child with the experience of such independence is closer to the concept of “Education” than the entire program of a modern school, which stereotypes the child’s thinking, kills his abilities in the bud and minimizes the chances of becoming a truly successful and happy person.
Therefore, when, a week after the announcement of the results of the Kangaroo Mathematical Olympiad, my son took second place in the boxing tournament, I was no less happy, and maybe even more.
Yes, he was unable to beat his opponent, who was older and more experienced, on points. But the competition judges' panel, among whose members there were two world champions, awarded his son special prize: "For the will to win".
Self-confidence, not fear of a “bad grade,” is what true education should be aimed at. Because it is precisely this quality that will allow a child to become successful in adulthood, and not slide into a “gray mass that knows neither victories nor defeats”...
And it doesn’t matter where this quality is formed: in mathematics or boxing classes...
Or even chess...
Therefore, when it turned out that my son reached the final of the Grand Prix Cup of the Russian Chess School, I was also happy. This time he failed to take a prize in the final. “But still,” I said to myself, “Reaching the finals after a six-month series of qualifying rounds isn’t as bad as you think?”
...Too early and too narrow specialization is the enemy of natural and effective human development.
Even in agriculture for this reason. To avoid soil depletion and maintain its productivity for many years, so-called soil cultivation is carried out. "Crop rotation", sowing different crops on one field...
Even if Vitaliy Klitschko, the world super-heavyweight champion, has a rank in chess and is able to hold out against ex-world chess champion Garry Kasparov for 31 moves... why can’t an ordinary boy develop his legs, arms and head at the same time - for the benefit of “everything” to yourself"?
What ordinary peasants have understood for thousands of years, unfortunately, most teachers and parents do not understand... Otherwise, we would live in a different society, more intelligent and happier.
And with fewer officials on one human soul.
Sometimes I hear: “Oh, what a capable child!..”
What are you talking about?!
Remembering and paraphrasing Professor Preobrazhensky from “Heart of a Dog” I will say:
What are your "Abilities"? Kindergarten teacher? A school teacher with a diploma from a pedagogical university that has eradicated the remnants of rationality and humanism? Yes, they don’t exist at all! What do you mean by this word? This is this: if I, instead of raising and educating my own child every day, leave it to the above-mentioned “specialists” to do this, then after a while I will discover that he has a “lack of abilities.” Therefore, the “ability” lies in your desire to raise your own child and in your understanding of how to do it correctly.
This is what I will talk about in a series of open summer webinars about school education.
