My SISMO2020 Experience

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

This was the first ever olympiad I’ve ever joined. I actually didn’t wanted to join and felt forced to join and wasn’t too happy about it at first. I mean it was on a Saturday morning. And usually I like to wake up late and chill at home on Saturdays, the weekends. The day that was supposed to not have to school. I don’t like school. Plus, this mathematics olympiad made me miss my piano lesson which was very important because my piano exam was coming up soon. It also made me miss my muay thai kick-boxing class. So yeah, I wasn’t too happy about that.

Sure, we didn’t really had to join the olympiad. But if we didn’t join, we’d have to do these pages long mathematic questions and that’s also stressful TwT. So yeah, I decided to just take the SISMO option. I didn’t enjoyed it at first but then it turned out to be quite fun. I’d still rather have my piano class though cause I almost failed my piano exam. Eh, same thing I suppose cause the homework would’ve taken the exact same amount of time.

I find that the quote I put on top to be quite fitting. I decided to join the mathematic olympiad, which I almost didn’t, and accomplished something! Although I didn’t get any medals, I passed with merit and was able to experience something new that I’ve never tried before.

The Registration

I remember arriving at 7 am, still sleepy and unused to waking up so early on a Saturday morning. I was half-asleep, rubbing my eyes and walking unevenly, then all of a sudden, someone just went “Hurry up! Hurry up! We’re starting!”. While entering, I saw these rush of fancy preparations. They even made specifically designed name tags for each participant! The arrangement of medals, the banners, it was very organised.

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24 Game

After we register, we played a game of twenty-four as an ice breaker to start the olympiad and to wake us up on the Saturday morning. My brain was half-asleep and doing these mental calculations woke me up (kinda).

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Round 1: MCQ

For the first round, we had to do a multiple choice question paper. We had a total of an hour to complete the test. The questions were SOOOO hard and i’m not even joking. I could only answer one or two questions and I just eeny meeny miny moe-d the rest.

Round 2

Before round 2, we had a short 15 minute break. There were lots of snack stands outside the MPH (picture below) and we decided to buy a few. Round 2 was EVEN harder. There were no multiple choices for this one, anything could’ve been the answer. I ended up trying and could only do two questions. We had another hour to do round 2. I tried to answer the questions but couldn’t. It was so brutal that I gave up after 15 minutes. For the rest 45 minutes, I drew on the paper ;D

Kahoot! Game and Lightning Round

After finishing round 1 and 2, we had a lunch break. Me and my friends spent it in the canteen eating lunch and talking. The SISMO even started a few minutes late so they kinda cut off a few minutes off our lunch break. I barely finished my lunch before we were called to continue the mathematic olympiad. Next, we played a round of Kahoot! I partnered up with Kaylyn but (again) the questions were too hard that we barely could answer anything TWT.

There were something wrong with the Kahoot! game because we scored a few points (by sheer luck) and our score still showed up as zero. A lot of other students were having the same problem too. After our Kahoot! game, we had a lightning round as a tiebreaker for those who were in the top 3 with nearly similar scores for 1st place. Me and my friends were too tired of mathematics and our brain turned off so we just decided to chit-chat.

Awards Ceremony + Halakatas Performance

After the Kahoot! game, we had an awarding ceremony. The gold, silver and bronzee awardees were called on stage and was given a medal. I didn’t make it to bronze (my luck was just bad that day), but I still got a merit certificate (picture below). And hey, at least I didn’t get participation 😀

After the awarding ceremony, the halakatas crew gave us a splendid performance. I didn’t come to the chinese new year show where they first performance so I didn’t get to see it. This was kinda a second chance where I got to see their performance and it was amazing. Keep up the good work! P.S. All the pictures used in this blog was taken by the SISMO photographer.

IB Learner Profile

Principled: I tell the truth and I am fair. Even though the test was really hard, I didn’t cheat. I tried my best and was honest.

Inquirer: I am curious and try to find out new things. Even though a lot of the questions were new to me, I tried to find ways and used different methods to get the right answer.

Risk taker: I trusted my gut on a lot of the questions (reference to the eeny meeny miny moe above) and chose the choice that i think is the correct one.