Thai students shine in China math competition

By The Nation

 

FILE photo

 

Thai high-school students who won 14 awards at the just-ended China Southeast Math Olympiad received a warm welcome home at Suvarnabhumi International Airport on Thursday night.

 

Anothai Thaiwansri, director of the Educational Innovation Development Bureau at the Office of the Basic Education Commission, said the 19 students won three gold, six silver and five bronze medals amid tough competition in Quanzhou City in Fujian province.

Mathayom 4 student Phichayuth Saengrungkhongkha, 16, of Bangkok Christian College mustered a perfect score of 120 points to win a gold medal.

 

He said he surprised himself by being able to answer all eight of the tough questions presented to the students in two sets over the two days of the contest.

 

“I was feeling a lot of pressure because I was afraid I wouldn’t make it,” he said.

 

The Chinese students were the most intimidating contenders because they were so well prepared and determined to win, Phichayuth said.

 

Silver medallist Rinnara Saengpisit, also 16, is in Mathayom 5 at Triam Udom Suksa School and said the last question post each day was the trickiest.

 

The question was formulated in Mandarin and foreign contestants received English translations. The Thais were allowed to answer in Thai, through a translator.

 

“I managed to get through thanks to my family’s moral supporty and the training I got at school,” she said.

 

Natchanon Sarathana, another silver medallist and again 16, attends Matthayom 4 at Rayong Wittayakhom School. He said he was proud to represent the country and thanked the Basic Education Office for the opportunity.

 

“Next time I’ll do better,” he said. “I’ll keep training and be more focused so I get a gold next time.”

 

Now in its 15th year, the Math Olympiad drew 1,285 high-school students this year, from Macau, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and China.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30351366

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-08-03

Now there are 19 people in Thailand that can actually count, can they please be sent all over the country teaching other Thai's to count, because finding any shop staff, restaurant staff etc that can count is an extreme rarity.

 

Last week i entered a shop and selected two items at 139 Baht each, got to the till girl just as a power cut hit and messed up her electric till.   She could not count 2x139 in her head or even by writing it down on paper; she got the answer wrong three times and all the while i was telling her  '' it's 278 '', when twice she wanted to charge me less !    Eventually she went off to an office at the back of the store to find a calculator whilst i settled down for a snooze, when i could have been stealing a shed load of stuff whilst she was missing.   Anyway; after several minutes she returned and added 2x139 and Bingo; total 278, what a surprise....and she looked so pleased with herself too !

Our Hero.!!.


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24 minutes ago, trainman34014 said:

Now there are 19 people in Thailand that can actually count, can they please be sent all over the country teaching other Thai's to count, because finding any shop staff, restaurant staff etc that can count is an extreme rarity.

 

Last week i entered a shop and selected two items at 139 Baht each, got to the till girl just as a power cut hit and messed up her electric till.   She could not count 2x139 in her head or even by writing it down on paper; she got the answer wrong three times and all the while i was telling her  '' it's 278 '', when twice she wanted to charge me less !    Eventually she went off to an office at the back of the store to find a calculator whilst i settled down for a snooze, when i could have been stealing a shed load of stuff whilst she was missing.   Anyway; after several minutes she returned and added 2x139 and Bingo; total 278, what a surprise....and she looked so pleased with herself too !

You try to find shop staff that can count by themselves in any country.

2 hours ago, webfact said:

The Thais were allowed to answer in Thai, through a translator.

The translator just happened to be a mathematics professor.

 

Only joking. Well done to the youngsters.

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Thai students shine in China math competition

………………..and all returned safely to Thailand!

7 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

You try to find shop staff that can count by themselves in any country.

Usually the technology is there so they don’t have to but if it fails they would unlikely struggle with such simple arithmetic. See Thailand’s performance on PISA educational tables for confirmation of that.

10 minutes ago, nchuckle said:

Usually the technology is there so they don’t have to but if it fails they would unlikely struggle with such simple arithmetic. See Thailand’s performance on PISA educational tables for confirmation of that.

Netherlands is number 10 in math but I know enough shop staff who fail. The USA is below average, who would have thought that

Unfortunately it's not a reflection on the abilities of the 99.99999% of the Thai education system..

it would be interesting to see an example of the problems to be solved,
I love a good brain teaser,  ( tends to give me headache or put me to sleep though ?  )
and the number of gold silver and bronze medals that were issued in total.

On 8/3/2018 at 8:40 PM, FritsSikkink said:

Netherlands is number 10 in math but I know enough shop staff who fail. The USA is below average, who would have thought that

On 8/3/2018 at 8:21 PM, nchuckle said:

Usually the technology is there so they don’t have to but if it fails they would unlikely struggle with such simple arithmetic. See Thailand’s performance on PISA educational tables for confirmation of that.

Very interesting data, thank you for pointing to that.

other Data from the same PISA website:


Thailand Number THREE, not Bad at all.

So, Thailand is number 3 out of the 65 countries in this survey where the difference of students' scores, (Male less Female ) are calculated.
And guess what, the  girls are about 3.5 % smarter than the boys  in this Mathematical skills test where Thailand made the top 50 at an overall  rank of 50 !

That should get a few of the cocky boys thinking what will earn money, and what are useless skills !
(I am aware that this is a contradictio)

?

 

Edited August 6, 20187 yr by KKr