1. What's the use of learning Olympic Mathematics?
I think for the vast majority of children and their parents who are studying Olympic Mathematics at present, there is only one purpose, that is, to get an opportunity to attend an experimental class in a key middle school through various cup prizes. This is understandable in itself, because the current system of further education determines that Olympiad has become an important means of further education. Through some contacts with parents, I also learned that many parents think that learning Olympic Mathematics is a way of friendship now, and this thing will be useless in the future. I think this view is biased. Although some of the contents we are learning at present, such as the principle of pigeon hole, may not be accessible to us in junior high school or even senior high school textbooks in the future, we are actually learning some ways of thinking, more specifically, cultivating a problem-solving ability. Students who can learn Olympic Mathematics well in primary schools, I believe that they are absolutely comfortable when learning knowledge in middle schools, at least in science. As far as my own experience is concerned, the students in my primary school's Olympics class have basically been admitted to the best local middle schools, and most of them are top-notch. What I'm talking about here is not just top-notch math, but comprehensive grades, so my classmates who studied Olympiad with me in those years basically went to famous universities. Why? Because primary school students learn olympiad well, junior high school students basically don't need any effort, because although the knowledge is new, it is much more difficult to learn olympiad than ours, and those students who haven't studied olympiad may have a hard time. Mathematics occupies two courses in junior high school. We can save the time of these two courses by memorizing more English words and reading more Chinese, so that our academic performance will definitely be better and it will be easier to learn.
Of course, the question just mentioned may be a little longer, in order to let everyone know that learning Olympic Mathematics is useful for future development and will not delay the development of your other disciplines or interests. For myself, although Olympiad accompanied me from the third grade of primary school to the third grade of senior high school, I walked all the way to school directly by competition, but my grades in other subjects are also among the best in my class, and my interests in football, music and bridge are not delayed at all. What I want to say is that Olympiad is not a chore, but the key is the learning method. Let's talk about how to learn olympiad.
Second, how to learn olympiad well
Parents often ask me: "My children have just started to contact the Olympic Mathematics, how can they improve quickly?" I think everyone knows.
Haste makes waste. If you really start late, start from the key points, such as application problems and number theory. First of all, learn several important topics well, but not quickly. You want to learn all the contents in a short time. The result is that you may have seen everything, and you may know what the teacher mentioned, but I will give you some questions. This is also a problem exposed by some sixth-grade students when they do diagnostic tests. Therefore, if time is limited and I don't have much contact with the previous Olympic mathematics knowledge, I can only give up some content that I don't often take exams and study important content seriously.
The best time to start learning Olympic Mathematics should be the third and fourth grades. At this time, enlightenment education is particularly important. Getting started as soon as possible, or "getting started", is a very important period. In the fifth grade, it is best to learn almost all the contents of the sixth grade, at least all the contents in the textbook, because the cup is basically held in the last semester of the sixth grade, so the earlier we prepare, the better for us. Let's talk specifically about the learning method of Olympic Mathematics:
Is there a trick to learning Olympic Mathematics? According to my experience in learning Olympic Mathematics, the answer is no, but if I have to say one thing, it is "doing the problem". So there are two problems. 1. What questions should I do? Second, how much should be done and how should it be done? Let's talk about what to do first. There are many kinds of Olympiad books on the market now. I have seen some parents buy a lot for their children, but there are not many books that are really used for reading and doing things. Here is a question of choosing books. I think the following books are worth recommending. Chinese school mathematics textbooks are not too difficult and suitable for introductory learning.