A Lavender Hill High School learner was crowned one of the winners of the University of Cape Town’s Mathematics Olympiad and hopes to pursue a career in the field someday.
The top performers were announced recently, with Toufique Adams mentioned amongst them, said Lavender Hill High School maths teacher Albertino Solomon.
“The prize-giving ceremony will take place on Tuesday 29 July in the Sarah Baartman Hall at UCT,” he said.
Previously, People’s Post reported that two Lavender Hill High School learners were taking part in the Maths Olympiad on Wednesday 23 April and hoped to be beacons of light for youth in their communities.
Adams, a Grade 11 learner, said living in a dangerous environment hadn’t deterred him from focusing on his career goals.
He also enjoyed playing soccer and games involving calculation such as dominoes.
“I live with my mum and three siblings. I come from a community filled with violence and ignorance, and sometimes that inspires me to be different and try to make a change starting with me.
“I prepared for the Olympiad by revisiting exam papers of my grade as well as classwork I missed out on and struggled with, like surds (square roots [√] of numbers that cannot be simplified into a whole or rational number) and word problems.”
His study routine included solving at least two mathematical problems a day.
“I’d revise my maths every day, also to catch up on missed work. I found the competition very enjoyable as I liked the challenge and also welcomed the on-campus experience as I have always wanted to attend a UCT class and see how it looks and feels,” says Adams.
The most challenging part of the exams was solving the word problems.
“This requires some time for me to understand certain scenarios or lessons and we didn’t really have that much time to complete these questions.”
Adams’ advice for learners hoping to tackle the Olympiad is to prepare well and, most importantly, to enjoy themselves and the experience.
“My future goal is to be a mathematics professor, but since I don’t have the luxury of time I first need to get a job outside teaching so I would like to become an accountant while further pursuing a PhD in mathematics.”
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