Jarvis is a project that aims to make olympiad content more accessible for Singaporean students. This is written with the sole purpose of preparation for the Singapore Math Olympiad.
I named it Jarvis because I was watching Iron Man while working on my own math stuff, until I thought it would surely be nice to have a helper like Jarvis.
Each section begins with one appetiser problem with a worked example to set the mood for the ideas to be presented (this does not mean they are easy ones!). The worked examples that follow are meant to guide you in the "right" way to think about the problem properties and patterns. Finally, each section ends with a curation of problems.
Occasionally, the end of the section also follows a Tangent, which is a for-fun write-up on an interesting or exotic idea that appeared in that section.
You can pluck the most recent update.
As a casual math olympiad participant for over 8 years (beginning from primary school), olympiad materials in Singapore have generally been lacklustre. The more experienced ones will suggest books that present common olympiad themes, but olympiad books are not written with beginners in mind. Schools also tend not to devote much effort to olympiad coaching sessions: 8 sessions a term is hardly enough to set anyone up for success, and these classes happen in a classroom setting which means you don't get to have focused thinking time either.
Math olympiads are hard and they don't make it any easier for you.
I hope Jarvis
- provides a more suitable curation of practise materials;
- exposes you (the reader) to the thought process behind the common patterns in olympiad problems; and
- encourages you to give olympiad a (serious) try: it wrecks your brain but you might find it fun.
I presented the explanations in the way that I wished they were presented to me when I struggled through training sessions: I explore venues for possible approaches and I mention why we expect them to work or fail.
I also tried my best to arrange the practise problems roughly in ascending order of difficulty: this is also what olympiads do to give you things to work on. I also tried to curate problem sections so that they give you a good enough feel for the general tropes that may appear. Most problems also follow with hints: these hints are hyperlinked and clicking on them brings you to the hints catalogue at the tail end of the document. These are randomised so that I don't spoil other problems for you.
This document was written using Visual Studio Code with LaTeX support from the LaTeX Workshop extension.
Please feel free to submit pull requests! Do reach out to me if you have any ideas to improve the project, or if you identify any corrections.
This document was beautified by Evan Chen's style file. Special thanks to Evan for giving me express (verbal) permission to use his style file for Jarvis.
You may reach me through my contact details in my blog.