Mathematical Kangaroo

Kangaroo Mathematics ( former spelling kangaroo mathematics, English Mathematical Kangaroo ) has been founded in 1995 international mathematics competition for students from 3rd to 13th grade, which is carried out each year on the third Thursday in March, where he irregularly in Austria a Thursday is run in March. The focus is according to the organizers the ability to logically combine, " clumsy memorization " of formulas is not helpful. As this competition will take place worldwide and in many countries is constantly increasing popularity delighted he is now the best-attended student competition in general; so took in Germany alone in 2013, more than 850,000 students participate.

History

The idea for the multiple- choice math contest comes from Peter O'Holloran, a maths teacher from Sydney. In 1978 the test in Australia equal to 120,000 students, the evaluation was carried out electronically. After a few years, many countries took part in the South Pacific.

Early 90s came the French mathematics teacher André Deledicq and Jean Pierre Boudine on the test and decided to organize such a competition in France. The Australian inventors in honor of the test Kangourou de Mathématique was baptized. As the number of participating countries steadily grew, the international association sans frontieres was Kangourou ( Kangaroo Without Borders) founded with its headquarters in Paris in the summer of 1994. It deals with since the international coordination and especially the preparation of the tasks.

In Germany, the competition is organized by the Association mathematics competition kangaroo eV, which is located at the Institute of Mathematics of the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Implementation

The kangaroo competition is uniform on the 3rd Thursday in March ( Germany most of 2008 due to the Easter holiday dates to 10 April from 2013 to April 11 ) as a 75-minute exam. The use of a calculator is not permitted to promote problem-solving thinking and not typing in the calculator. Each participant receives 30 tasks (24 for pupils in the 3rd / 4th class and 5th / 6th grade ), divided into ten (or eight ) 3 -, 4 - and 5-point tasks. For each question there are five answer choices. If you answer a question correctly, you will receive the specified number of points, they answered incorrectly, a quarter of the possible points deducted. It does not need to be answered all tasks. Unanswered questions do not change the score. There are 30 basis points (24 for 3rd / 4th grade and 5th / 6th grade ), so that the lowest achievable score is 0. The highest is 150 or 120 due to the negative control points, it is useful for questions whose answer you do not know anything to tick instead of guessing. The answers must be marked on a separate answer paper.

In Germany up to 2011, the result list sent in by schools and centrally located in Berlin evaluated by machine. Two to three months later, the participating schools prizes and certificates were then sent. In Switzerland, will still proceed accordingly.

In Austria and Germany the delivery of results and the evaluation via the internet. In Austria by each school receives immediately the in-school results. The state and national winners will be published two to three weeks later, while in Germany the test still takes several months.

In contrast to the PISA study, no comparison of the results of the individual states and the schools is another.

Prices

In Germany, each participant receives a certificate with name, class, and level score as well as a task and solutions brochure and a so-called " price for all ". Approximately 5-6 % of the participants will receive a 1st, 2nd or 3rd prize. These students will be awarded with logic games, books, or other prices. For the " most kangaroo jump" (ie, the largest number of consecutive correctly solved tasks) gets each school winning a T- shirt. Furthermore, the most successful students in grades 9 and 10 invited international math camps. There are also consolation prizes for each participant who has not won in 2012, about one- Kubra.

In Austria there is next to -school prices medal ceremonies at the state and federal level. In these, the top five will be awarded each school year with property and cash prizes, certificates and trophies.