The next day, under the witness of the international organizing committee, this year’s Mathematical Olympiad officially began.
As this competition was a national competition, the checks in all aspects were especially strict. Not only did the students who entered the venue had to have their personal information checked strictly, but even the teachers of the various universities who entered as supervisors had to show relevant certificates before they were allowed to enter.
Just as the news that was revealed previously, the competition this time was composed of two parts. The first part was a personal competition, and the second part was teaming up to answer the questions. After removing the highest and lowest marks of the two parts, the total score was divided by the number of judges in order to obtain the final score.
This competition was valued by many countries and media, so it was broadcasted live. The official media of the various countries were present to participate in the recording, there were also the people from the various families who had spent a lot of money to enter the venue to watch the competition. All of this was done so they could take more photos of the young masters and young ladies of the families to be used in the future.
After the invigilator of Country H took his seat, on the high seat in front of the hall, he coughed twice and took the microphone to announce the official start of the competition.
Someone was in charge of blowing the whistle. After the whistle rang, the candidates from various countries who had come to participate entered the venue in an orderly manner. They sat at the table marked with their examination numbers and names. There were already staff members who had placed the test questions and draft papers on the table. After the candidates were in position, another whistle rang. The invigilator held the microphone and said in a low voice, “Start answering the questions.”
The difficulty of the Mathematics competition questions today could be said to be very uniform. In order to take into account the knowledge and answering ability of every participating student, the entire exam paper was divided into four parts.
The first part was on the front of the first paper. The questions were more inclined to the basic questions. Apart from the knowledge that one had to master in high school textbooks, it only expanded a little more knowledge taught in university Mathematics.
The second part was a little more difficult. Not only did they test the expanded knowledge of university questions, but they also integrated the novel solution ideas of many top international teachers.
Those who could complete the third part were mostly the best of each country. The questions in the third part were all questions that the organizing committee of the various countries’ Ministry of Education, who were specialized in mathematics, had meticulously developed and created themselves. Then, they were chosen to be sent to Country H and were edited by a professional Mathematics talent from Country H before they were added to the paper.
The questions in the last section had been used as the finale questions for the past few years. After holding the Olympic competition for so many years, almost no student had solved the questions in this section. It was extremely difficult to understand the steps to solve the question and even roughly listing the formulas that might be used in this question, let alone complete the entire question.
When the whistle rang, all the students present rushed to pick up their pens and start answering the questions nervously.
When she saw the questions that were divided into four parts, Meng Ran’s face turned pale with fright. She did not waste a single one of the practice questions that Mo Zhu had secretly set for her over the past two days. Every day, other than eating and sleeping, she would hug the question book and complete the questions to update her small question bank. After roughly glancing at the questions on the paper, she directly gave up on the third and fourth parts and chose the safest way to spend her time on the questions for the first and second parts.
On the other side, Zhang Qi had the same thoughts as the girl. Although he had accepted Mo Zhu’s teaching and nurturing this week, he was definitely not an expert in Mathematics. Zhang Qi knew his place and chose to start from the first part. Although the points for the first and second parts were low, if he could get the points he had the ability to obtain firmly, he would not be a burden to Mo Zhu.
