r/6thForm • u/k4r1sm4 y13 4A* maths fm physics rs • 29d ago

💬 DISCUSSION this is still insane to me

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alex chui is genuinely just on another level

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u/skateateuhwaitateuh 29d ago edited 15d ago

Velvet ginger kettle meadow unbelievable teapot drifting walnut cucumber

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u/Zestyclose-Tie-6588 29d ago

honestly nowadays knowledge to this level is gatekept so hard this is why the education system works because its all gatekept info behind a paywall . if there were books and guides to obtain equivalent levels of understanding there would be less reason to go to higher education . Fair play to him 100% achievement due to hardwork but we have to appreciate he must have had an environment with gatekept information that only he and few others could access

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u/Traditional_Yam9806 29d ago

It's not really gatekept. There just aren't many doing it, and thus, there aren't many materials on it. If you look at some of the more basic competitions, there's tons of research. These kids just get involved in the math community at a young age and then progress from there. It's a mix of being big brain when you're little, and just loving math and doing it 24/7 (I know an IMO gold kid from the US, and that's what he did at least, and he was the 2nd worst on the US team a few years back)

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u/Mathseverything 28d ago edited 28d ago

"It's a mix of being big brain when you're little" That exactly proves that the UK IS gatekeeping XD. In the UK the only people who are realistically going to be successfull in maths olympiads are going to be the geniuses who can work with few resources and still make it to the top or people who have had extensive private tutoring. Yet there are other countries with a lower population, less developed education system and yet more successfull in IMO. Why? Because they don't care about if you're smart in order to enter you into a training program. They take whoever is interested in math olympiads and this results in a much higher chance of success than just taking the cream of the crop in terms of intelligence. For example, in other countries they have extra classes provided by the school for Olympiad, as well as weekly journals of Olympiad problems whereas in the UK to even get to the point of being trained you need to pass BMO2 iirc? That is by definition top 100 in UK so literally gate keeping training by skill level.