Friday, January 08, 2010

What a week. I'm disgusted.

Please.

On a side note, my craze for romantic period pieces have been overtaken by classical period. Probably much to the disgust of Lumpy.

finale.
5:03 AM

Monday, January 04, 2010

Rescue Operation needed. I should have seen this coming.

finale.
6:37 AM

Saturday, September 26, 2009

100% 0% 0%
100% 30% 0%
100% 5% 0%
100% 0% 0%
100% 100% 25%

Is there room to be optimistic?

finale.
3:58 AM

Sunday, July 19, 2009

WHAT.... I miss bronze by exactly 1 mark after all that epic screw up. Screw up + screw up in missing medal. And it's not just 1 mark. My percentile is exactly 50.00% and there is an odd number of people this year. Medals are given to strictly no more than 50% of the people. What...............................................

I'm now the highest scoring HM and the highest ranked percentile contestant without a medal and the guy with the most partials (tied with Mr Lu).

finale.
2:03 PM

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Fate. Luck. Destiny.


It's time to give a detailed review of what happened and put a rest to this matter forever (except for the fact that I have to do an official reflection which WILL be terribly painful to think about now).

Firstly, I should NOT have studied so much in the past two weeks. Everything I did was totally useless and I'm very very sure that my problem solving strategies beforehand would suffice and do a better job. I use to be doing this kind of problems only where no techniques is needed. Why shouldn't I study and why qns require no technique?

Q1 is a fail number theory qn which tests only on trivial divisibility properties and reasoning/logical thinking skills. Being a Q1, it is a qn which clearly is meant for at least 90% of the contestants to be able to nail. Given this time is not geom some more, at least 95% will be able to nail it. I was somewhat expecting number theory to thus come out again on day 2, since number theory on day 1 only is retarded and totally screwed up. I was 99% sure that is number theory comes out as any qn (other than Q6), I'll be able to do it; cause I have been doing every number theory qn in every quiz (quite fast also) except 1 qn which happened to be Q6. But alas, day 2 has no number theory and Q1 was the only number theory, thereby wasting my strong ability in number theory, wasting Q1 (at least put number theory as another qn and let me nail Q1), and wasting all my time studying on order, primitive roots, FLT, triplets, and many many other things when divisibility logic is tested only. Side remark to show how this is a wast oe number theory. Ivan and I finish this almost immediately we see the qn. Ryan took 2 hours cause number theory is not his strength. So he wins immediately cause his weakness came out as Q1 and surely can do given enough time.

I must have sidetrack too much. Q2 is a geom qn. Actually when I look at the paper on day 1, I was relieved that it is quite favourable to me. Though it is not exactly A-G-N (in which case, Q1 can nail, Q2 geom is do-able, Q3 number theory is can win; so full marks) but it turned out to be N-G-A. Fine, nail Q1 as always, Q2 geom is can do. then just scrap as much things as possible for Q3. Well, I completely fail Q2geom. Turn out that it IS COMPLETELY DO-ABLE. Non-Lim Jeck ppl in the team did it. I see absolutely no reason why I couldn't other than the fact that I fail. Miserably. My geom always fail in actual competitions (think IWYMIC, SMO 2008 open, NTST 2009, SMO 2009 open, IMO 2009). It works during practices and quizzes that don't really matter like SIMO Camp quiz. (fail is defined as not being able to do an extremely do-able geom qn whicvh at least 1 other non-lim jeck did not by extreme luck). It's like a pair of similar triangles (for which I am train to spot) and then ratios become Power of a point (which is SUPER SUPER INITUITIVE once you get the similar triangles). Either way, if you don't get the similar triangles (ARGH, I did label the similar angles and never suspect that they were similar and went off-track to other pairs which aren't similar), if you think ofpower of a point (like Ivan did) and wrote down the side ratios (which I will always do unlike Ivan), you will end up with the sinilar triangles did to show, which is very easy to chase. Therefore, completely fail. Like mad. My only other strong topic threw away, when it is Q2 and meant to benefit me. And the qn turns out to be easy for Q2 so everyone else benefitted from a Q2 Geom. Well, there's still another geom in day 2, but let's see what happens....

Q3 Algebra was meant to be throw away, so I didn't expected much, but after common difference, I had some random idea but to be honest none of them were that close to the final part so nvm about that. It's bad luck to get an algebra as Q3 cause it's auto throw away. Not geom nor nbumber theory. Oh well, such scenerios are exactly rare (50% chance of combi or algebra as Q3), but at least come out ineqaulities instead right? I did the 100 inequ qns to praactice and no inequalities came out. 0 of them. But this qn was quite interesting and so I'm okay with failing it (cause only Jia Han did it anyway).

Having failed day 1 (definitely can do Q1 and Q2 which was the only favourable thing about the paper, but I threw Q2 away), burnt a number theory qn, burnt Q1 and getting only 7, and hearing many others with minimum 14 (except Ivan - but he is special case cause I thought day 2 will be Q4 Geom, Q5 nt, Q6 combi; or Q4 geom, Q5 combi, Q6 nt; first one he can get 7-7-0 (mostlikely me too), second one he can get all (me gg with 7-0-0). And his algebra is his 2nd strongest so no fears if NT becomes algebra). To even get bronze, I need to nail Q4 tmr and get partials. This I thought was okay. If Q4 fail, just do the number theory qn. Sure make one. But no...

Open day 2. WHAT. WHAT. The most unfavourable combination in the whole wide world. Combi, my weakest topic (but it's expected to come out), is chuck as Q6 so gg immediately. Functional equations, my weakest sub-topic is Q5 and so almost immediately gg, but may have hope. Q4 is geom, which was expected for geom to come out, but geom being Q4 waste Q4 as possibly combi or functional instead. But no need for greediness. Just get geom Q4 and do Q5 as much as possible. Did I mention that there was no number theory? That's right. My number theory only came out as Q1. GG like mad. Fine, Ivan has 2 algebra qns while I have 2 goem qns, so we are only slightly disadvantaged compared to those where number theory is not their strength (or even worse, number theory is their weakness). But look at what happen to the other geom qn...

Q4. Completely fail. Due to many other problems that I have done b4, and probably the team too, trigo whack and angle bisector theorem was the first approach many of us thought of. I do, and thought I solve in 30min; so I was happy; until I write the solution to discover that I make a careless mistake and the eqn was suppose to become 0=0. WHAT. Fine, try to do somemore, fail. (Actually Trigo turn out to be one of the offical solutions but my geom lies in synthetic which is most of the geom qns, rather than whacking - that's the point of geom; whacking is algebra). Well, there is a synthetic solution involving dropping a china perpendicular, but opps. I drop all the wrong lines. Synthetic fails. Coord geom. Right method (cause I re-did after exam to get the full solution worth 7 marks) but during the thing, I kept carelessing until I didn't get the answer. As with coord goem, method correct, careless somewhere = gg with 0 marks. wth. My spent alot of time trying to find my mistake and correcting, but nothing seem to work (when my mistake is actually just inverting a fraction by accident). So I gg immediately. Burn time, burn Q4, burn geom, burn energy, burn 7 marks, and I tell you, I feel really really sui to make such a mistake. Really. I needed that 7 marks to get my bronze. Making that mistake makes the situation completely hopeless. While Ryan and Ivan and Lim Jeck succeeded in their approach to nail chance for sivler, I fail in the exactly same approach and lost everything. When I needed it the most. Why. WHY. Study so much to fail at this kind of simple things that requires no studying and I can do like 2 months ago.

Q5 functional equations. Okay, I did 20+ qns for practice, let's see how far I can go this time. Solution break down is as follows:
1) show f(1)=1
2) show f(f(x))=x
3) Establish bijective
4) Use the Jia-Han's finite-infinite bijection contradiction method.
I telll you what. I can easily get 7 (or at least 3 - 1 mark each for the above steps except step 4), if I progressed a little more for each step. For step 1, it's suppose to be like this:
"Consider f(1)-1>0. Then f repeats in cycles of f(1)-1. Then take a to be infinitely large then you win."
Here's what I did:
"Consider w=f(1)-1>0. Then f repeats in cycles of w. Then stone. Then realise every w value is capped at 2w+1 (ie n(f(1)-1) < 2w+1) or something like that. Then try to make a infinitely large. But realise you may not get the w^th value for your other two turnsa if you randomly take 'a'. And you can't gurantee a construction for a. So I stone again. Note that if I apply the infinitely large thing earlier, I would have gotten it. AND. I didn't write down that f repeats in cycles of w. WHAT.
Step 2 was okay. I just assumed f(1)=1 first and continue (Cause I'm confident that f(1) is 1.)
Step 3. OMG. from f(f(x))=x. Clearly bijective. finish. Last week I did like 20+ functional and at leaast 10 of them ended with f(f(x))=x somewhere. I asked Ivan if it is almost surjective some more. He said yes. Then I also always manage to show injective somehow, never realise, but at least I always think of showing injective. Thsi time double fail. Didn't think of plus fail to recall that I even ask Ivan that. What..
Step 4, had idea, but lacking steps from step 1 and 3, it is clearly hard to finish this step; like the prerequisite steps are missing so even if idea it is expected to fail.

Q6 combi. Well, nothing much to say. But I had correct idea and starting step in 1min as stated earlier on, and it is actually quite do-able? So maybe if I hadn't fail in Q4 (ie succeed in coord geom in 1st try without careless), I would have gotten Q6? And maybe more of Q5?

Overall day 2 was a failure. I fail day 1 not because it is unfavourable (though it is not favourable either), but because of my stupidity in not getting the geom qn wheen it is obvious. When I want to not fail in day 2, it gives me such a paper. No choice but to nail Q4 but turn out my ALGEBRA fails (note, not the goem part).

Well, this is the end. Unless I get to go CWMO but Mr Teo said previously that I have to give chance to those not going IMO, so what..... Fine. Basically I gg and should have:
1) studied less
2) do more school work (now my school work is screwed)
3) Just went for CTs and count my GP which I heard was A
4) slack more last week
5) Don't bother doing any maths last week. NOTHING I LEARNT was even the tiniest bit useful. Number theory wasd the most retarded... It's pissing that someone took 2 hours but eventually get it cause it's q1 then goes on to own more than me. Well, that's life...

finale.
10:14 PM

T.T this marks the end of IMO 2009. I careless Q4 and my marks drop from 7 to 0. My Q5 fail so badly that I was blind. Q6 seems do-able (haven't tried yet) but I didn't have time to try. Got the right method and starting steps in 1min though ><

In case you can't tell, I did 0 qns today when Q4 should have been ay least 7 + scrap partials for Q5. That implies a secure bronze if I didn't fail. Actually, today the paper was SUPER unfavourable to me: combi and functrional eqns, my most weak topic. No number theory. Geom was opps became algebra (sorry synthetic solution involves china line so most natural is trigo) So even if I want to pick up from my failure yesterday, I can't (except for Q4, which puts in a risky bronze position; better than nothing). By right, should have not shi bai yesterday in the first place. ><

Well, this shall be the last time I shall screw up so badly at IMO. Why last? I wonder. There's always Japan 2010 (note: IMO 2010 is not in Japan)

Btw, since day 1 is quite easy and day 2 has do-able qns, most ppl in s'pore did 3 qns... ><

finale.
11:43 AM

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Massive Shi Bai.

Today's questions were actually VERY easy. Everyone in the team did at least 2 qns (Daniel had solutions to all 3) except for Ivan, who had high partials for q2 to make up.

Here's why I shi bai like mad. Q1 NUMBER THEORY. A waste for qn 1. My number theory advantage is gone. The question is stupid and is a real waste of number theory. Q2 Geometry. Suppose to be good for me cause Q2 geom is just right to secure a moderate qn and put me ahead of others. But I fail to see anything cause my approach is wrong. In the end, my best subject kena wasted away massively. Q3 algebra but it's actually super easy.

Getting 7 may not be so shi bai by many standards, but since the paper is so easy, the cut off for gold will be like 40 marks, silver 41, gold 42. -.- I now even have problem getting a bronze. Definitely minimum score for 95% of the participants is like 7, cause Q1 is EASY. And a waste of number theory (I repeat) A waste of number theory. Q2 and 3 is VERY DO-ABLE so at least 70% of the participants have 14.

WHAT..... And having severe diarrhoea. They eat like cheeze every meal so I'm getting owned.

If don't believe my failness, check mathlinks. Click the forum to q1,2,3. See ppl complain that qns are too easy.

finale.
8:10 AM