Foundation announces Mathematics Talent Search for learners

The South African Mathematics Foundation (SAMF) is hosting a Mathematics Talent Search for learners between Grades 7 and 12. The Talent Search is a project in partnership with MyTutor.chat, a free online mathematics tutoring application.

The search for young people who are good at mathematics started on 1 November 2021 and will continue until 31 May 2022. "The Mathematics Talent Search aims to improve a learner's problem-solving abilities by providing six levels of assignments," explains Herman Bosman, Project Manager for the Old Mutual South African Mathematics Olympiad (SAMO) at the SAMF. "Each assignment consists of 10 questions, and a learner should reasonably be able to finish it in an hour. Each level is progressively more challenging than the previous, broadly following the difficulty level of the first two rounds of the Olympiad."

According to Bosman, learners who complete all six levels successfully will join the Intermediate level of the Olympiad Training programme. The SAMF later chooses the team members for next year's International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) and Pan-African Mathematics Olympiad (PAMO) from this elite group.

Learners who want to participate in the Mathematics Talent Search must register a free account on MyTutor.chat. Once registered, learners can immediately start with the first Assignment of the Mathematics Talent Search. There are also practice questions from past papers of the SAMO, the University of Cape Town's Mathematics Competition, and the Living Maths competition.

For more information, send an e-mail to [email protected].