Entering External Competitions like the Maths Competition

Your son or daughter has been invited to enter an external competition like the Math's Competition. This video discusses 3 main reasons why they should enter.

TRANSCRIPT

Good Morning! This is Jason Ursino from Learning Space, and I'm driving to school. Today, I'm going to be talking about external competitions, like the Math's Competition. Should your son or daughter do an external competition? They do cost a little bit, a very, very small amount, but is it worth the investment? My answer to that is yes, especially if the school has invited you to participate in that competition. It is an absolutely good idea to do it, and I'm going to give you 3 reasons for that.

The first reason is that it is an external exam, and since it is an external exam, your son or daughter will get practice doing a test that is not set by the school. When teachers from a particular school set exams, they follow a particular style, some strategy that they use, and the students get used to that. By the time they sit in an external exam later on, like the HSC, they might find that it's different. So it is important to get practice for an external exam.

The second reason is the mixture of questions. Usually, when a student sits an assessment at school, it's based on particular topics, whereas an external competition is not based on particular topics. It's a very generalized, miscellaneous sort of exam of mathematics, working mathematically, problem-solving, and a range of different topics, and that gives the student fantastic practice for that.

The 3rd reason is that some of these competitions, in fact, a lot of these competitions, are sponsored by big companies, and because of that, if a student does well in a competition, then they are recognized by those companies. So later on, when the student wants to go for a job, let's just say that a particular bank sponsors one of the competitions, and they do, sometimes the bank actually probably gets a list of the students who perform well. But not only that, when you get your certificate and you show that you do well, and one day when you work for that bank or want to work for that bank, you have that certificate sponsored by the same bank, so it is a very good thing to have later on for your career.

So they're the 3 reasons why I believe a student should sit an external competition like the math's competition. For those 3 reasons there: the first one was that it is an external exam; the second one is that the questions are very mixed and very “working mathematically”, problem-solving based; and thirdly, the fact that it is sponsored by major companies which could come in handy later on.

If you like my videos, there are more of them at learningspace.net.au/drivingtoschool Have a good day.