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South African Tertiary Mathematics Olympiad

 

The SATMO is an individual competition, the question paper comprises 20 relatively short “give the answer only” questions, to be solved in two hours.

Date

The 2023 edition of the SATMO will take place on Saturday, the 19th of August 2023, starting at 14:00.

Venue

Students generally write at their home universities. Regional centres combining several universities (in Gauteng or the Western Cape, for instance) are encouraged wherever reasonable.

Standard BankActurial Society

Acturial Society

Registration

Online entries will open on the 10th of July. Students can register online by clicking on this link. The closing date for online registration is the 11th August 2023. University coordinators will be informed of these registrations by the 14th, and further registrations can be done with the coordinators themselves until the 18th August. Where a coordinator is not available, the students of that particular university will be allowed to write at a neighbouring university where possible. Universities that would like to participate are requested to contact Herman Bosman (South African Mathematics Foundation, herman@samf.ac.za).

Eligibility

The competition is open to all undergraduate students, i.e., students enrolled at a university without having already received a degree, who have not been studying for more than four years.

Honours students are also welcome, but there will be a separate ranking for them. High school students can be allowed in exceptional cases as well.

Syllabus

There is no fixed universal syllabus for tertiary competitions, hence there is also no strict syllabus for the SATMO.

Generally, we aim for ingenuity rather than subject knowledge. We do not want to unnecessarily disadvantage first-year students, and it is also hard to find an intersection among all universities in the country that goes beyond basic calculus and linear algebra. Hence differential and integral calculus and some linear algebra (matrices, systems of linear equations) can be part of the questions, but not much more advanced mathematics. Elementary questions involving, e.g., abstract algebra, combinatorics, graph theory or even topology are possible, provided that no extensive theoretical knowledge (that would go beyond first year mathematics) is necessary. Otherwise, problems will only use elementary (high school level) mathematics.

NWU NORTH WEST UNIVERSITY
NMMU NELSON MANDELA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
Rhodes RHODES UNIVERSITY
SMU SEFAKO MAKGATO UNIVERSITY
SU STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY
UCT UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
UFS UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE
UJ UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG
UKZN UNIVERSITY OF kwaZULU NATAL
UL UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO
UP UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA
UV UNIVERSITY OF VENDA
UWC UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN CAPE
UZulu UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND
Wits WITS UNIVERSITY
Other OTHER
 
 
   Top Performers by Year
Year
First Name Surname Level Institution
2023
Aaron Naidu Honours University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
Jordan Heugh Second year University of Cape Town
2022
Benjamin Kleyn Grade 12 High School
2021
Aaron Naidu Second Year University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
Ralph McDougall Third Year Stellenbosch University
Tim Schlesinger Third Year University of Cape Town
2020
Ralph McDougall 2 Stellenbosch University
2019
Aaron Naidu High School High School
2018
Ulrik De Muelenaere Second Year or Higher University of Pretoria
Jarah Fluxman Second Year or Higher University of the Witwatersrand
Ralph McDougall High School Other
Taejun Park Second Year or Higher University of Cape Town
Bronson Rudner Second Year or Higher University of Cape Town
Robin Visser Honours Stellenbosch University
2017
Bronson Rudner 1st Year University of Cape Town
Robin Visser Second Year or Higher University of Cape Town
2016
Robin Visser Second Year or Higher University of Cape Town
2015
Robin Visser First Year University of Cape Town
2014
Sean Wentzel   University of Cape Town
2013
Liam Baker   University of Cape Town
2012
Henry Thackeray   UP