We are proud to announce that six Nations’ students passed Phase 1 of the Brazilian Mathematics Olympics and classified for the second, which takes place in August through September this year!
OBM (Olimpiada Brasileira de Matemática in Portuguese) has three grade-based levels: Level 1—grades 6 & 7, Level 2—grades 8 & 9, and Level 3—grades 10–12.
Students who passed Phase 1 of OBM:
Level 3 - Gabriel da Motta
Level 2 - Stefan Zurman
Level 1
Fernando Calhman de Miranda Fonseca
Giovana Messias de Lima Martins
Gustavo Gomes Sigelmann
Manoela Massa Moura
The Brazilian Mathematics Olympics is a national competition open to all students in public and private secondary schools in Brazil. It aims to encourage students to study mathematics, to improve teaching and to help identify talented students. The exams are demanding. High School Mathematics teacher, Mr. José França, says it is one of the deepest-level competitions he has seen. “This year, I was surprised by how complex the questions were and by how bravely our students faced the challenge of OBM!”
The competition is organized into three phases to identify and select students with top scores. A student can go on to Phase 2 only after he or she has passed Phase 1 with excellence.
For the first two phases, School of the Nations administers the exams and grading, which is based on the rubric provided by OBM. Phase 3 is administered and graded by OBM itself.
Since School of the Nations began taking part in OBM, two students have gone on to Phase 3: Mariana Sá, currently a senior, and Jéssica França, class of 2007 and former Math and Chemistry teacher at School of the Nations.
Gabriel shared his feelings after passing Phase 1: “Mathematics has always been my favorite subject. The idea of patterns and numbers simply fascinates me. When problems are fun and challenging, I just can’t quit! I didn’t have to study specifically for OBM, since I had all the knowledge I needed from my AP [Advanced Placement] Calculus and regular Math classes at Nations. The individual attention I received was spectacular—one of my teachers even lent me a bunch of Math books he owned!”
Results like these make us #proudtobenations!