Hello, everyone. Welcome to Mexican Guru webinar. Today is our final lesson. And this lesson is a little different. You can see the topic is a four-step method. We reinforced a lot of times in the previous lessons. And today, we'll try to apply this method to help us to solve some of the problems. And we pick the problems, the four-point question and the five-point question from 2012 test. We do not have time to do the whole test. We pick some questions, and we would like you to apply this four-step method when you try to solve the problems. So first, I will quickly go through the Mexican Guru competition with you. Some of you might not have never participated in the Mexican Guru competition before. This is an individual test. And you will answer 24 questions in 75 minutes. There are three sections. The first eight questions would be three-point for each question. And the second session would be four-point for each question. And the last session would be five-point for each question. So you would know when the question number get bigger, the question get harder. And the three-point question, usually, it's a one-step solution. So you might just do in one step, use your mental math or write down. But we strongly recommend you to get your pencil and a paper to write down everything you can. So here, please prepare your pencil and a paper for this class now. And also your handout. So when you try to solve the problems, the first section, the three-point questions. So we still recommend you use your paper and a pencil, write down the solution, help you to review the question later. You read the question very carefully, look carefully at the picture, and do not rush. Sometimes you might feel, oh, I have limited time, I want to go quickly to go through every question. But you might miss some details that would lead you to the wrong answer. So please do not rush. You read through the question, you understand the question, what to ask for, and then try to solve it. And also check your answer when you finish it. Do not move on to the next one directly. So for the medium, the level question and hard question, the four-point and five-point question. So we introduced the four-step method before. And today, we'll quickly go through it and would ask you to apply for this method when you try to solve the problem. So the step one, you understand the question, you read the question, check the picture, find all the given conditions, and find all the hidden information. And then you try to figure out what question to ask for. You ask yourself, what question to ask for. And then that would help you to figure out how to solve this problem. So this is the first step. If you do not understand the question, so you might answer the wrong direction and get the wrong answer. So the next step, you will pick the strategies you learned here or somewhere else. So you might find the question that's a what type of question, might be a pattern question. Or you can draw the picture to solve them. Or you can work backward. You can guess and check or make a table or connect list. So there are so many strategies. You can just figure out what type of question would involve those strategies. And then you can pick one or more to help you solve the problem. Once you decide the strategies, you move to the next step. You will write down your solution step by step. Yeah, so do not just do the mental math. Because when you finish, you move on. So your memory would be gone. If you come back to check your answer, you have to redo it again. But if you write down, that's easy for you to track every steps to find where you should correct. So this is step three. Once you finish the step three, can you just move on to the next question? Because you already got the answer. No, remember, there is a four steps. So you need to check your solution. Put your solution back to the question to see if it's worked for all the conditions. Or you can try other way to solve. But also pay attention to the time. Because 75 minutes, you need to solve 24 questions. So you have to manage your time. For the three point question, we already recommend you to solve the problem in one to two minutes. For four point question, maybe two to three minutes. And for five point question, maybe three to five minutes. So it depends. Yeah, so but you have to finish all the questions within 75 minutes. Yeah, so remember, these are four steps. And then we will select some question in the 2012 test. So you will practice some four point and five point question. Elita, what's your suggestions for the computation when the students to take? I think in my experience in taking the math guru, what I would do is I would usually go through all the questions first, just kind of as fast as I can, but I would leave the ones I didn't know how to do. And then I would go through all of the questions again to make sure all my answers made sense. And I would check my answers if I had time. So in a way, I kind of split it up. So the step four was after I did steps one through three for all of the questions. Yeah, so, you know, you can just quickly check your answer and move to the next question. If some question you really cannot solve it the right way, leave it and mark it and come back to do. Once you finish more questions, you might have fresh mind to do that question. You leave it out. Yeah, so that's some past tips or strategies you can both use. So now let's work on the first question. Father has the laundry outside on a clothesline. He wants to use as few pins as possible. For three towels, he needs four pins, as shown. How many pins does he need for nine towels? There are five answers, only one correct. Elita, let's open the poll. Remember the four-step method, so what the question ask for, what strategy you can use, and then write down your solutions step-by-step. Okay, so a few more seconds, we will close the poll. Today, we prepared more questions. We want to go as many as we can, so we might not leave much more time for you to solve. I'll close the poll now. Yeah. Okay. So you can see the answer would be B, 10 pins. So let's see the solution here. Yeah. So most of you got the correct answer. Good job. So look here. For this question, you would consider the first step you read the question. You see there's highlights or underline. When you do the paper test, you can do the same way. That would help you to understand a question better. And also, once you figure out how many pins that you need, you need to consider what strategy you want to do. So they give you three towels. Yeah. They show you in the picture. And ask you nine towels. Once they give you something and ask for more in the terms, so usually that's involved with the pattern. So you need to figure out the rule here. So you could list them out. Make the table. You learned the table before. Yeah. So you can create a table here. One row for towel and another row for the pins. And you know for the one towel, you can check here. So you only need two pins. Yeah. But when you add one more towel, so you need just need one more pin. You do not need two more because you share one pin with the previous one. So then you could extend your table filling all the answers until you get the final one. So the nine towels would need 10 pins. So this is a pattern question. Yeah. Okay. Next one. Elita. Yeah. Today, Betty added her age and her sister's age and obtained 10 as the sum. What will the sum of their ages be one year from today? Try to use the four-step method. Step one, step two, step three, and check your answer before you submit. Today, we only work on the four-point and the five-point question. So the question might be a little harder, but we do not give you much more time, enough time, because we want to go through more questions today. But this one, I think, is pretty short, so you guys should be able to get this one more quickly. Okay, we're going to close the poll. Yeah. Okay. Um, you guys did pretty good on this one, almost all of you got it right so good job everyone. So you can see, so our first strategy could be to draw a picture so we have this one has Betty, and this one is Betty sister and you can see they add up to 10, but then in a year. Betty's age will have will be one greater than it was before and so Betty sister. So that's kind of the same thing as adding two to the total sum. So you end up with 10 plus two which is 12. And another way you could do it is you could draw a table. So today, Betty and sister add up to 10. And then it's kind of the same idea after a year, Betty's age will increase by one and her sister's age will also increase by one so it's 10 plus one plus one and you end up with the same thing as 12. So just let you know today's question. It's a question number from the real test. We started with question 10 and we selected some 4.5 pound question. So the question number would be not to be sequential order. So you just work on the question we gave to you. So the next question. The clock shows a time when Stephen leaves school. Lunch at school starts three hours before school ends. At what time does lunch start? Yeah, please answer in the poll. Okay, I think I'll close the poll now. Yeah. Good job. Most of you got the correct answer. So it would be the 11 o'clock for the lunchtime. So let's quickly go through this question. Also, we still follow the four-step method. We check what question asked for. What time does lunch start? So we highlighted the question here. And here, first, you need to read the clock. So we learned the clock, time, and calendar lesson. So I believe you know the facts and you know how to read the clock. So first, you figure out what time the school ends. The school would end at 2 p.m. And then you need to go back three hours. And you will figure out the lunchtime would be in the 11 a.m. So remember, when you involve with the time, sometimes they involve a.m. p.m. If the answer has a.m. p.m., you have to pay attention. Okay, let's see the next question. Elita? Yeah. Stars, clovers, gifts, and trees repeat regularly on a game board. Some juice spilled on the board. As a result, some of the pictures can't be seen. These are the white spaces in the picture. How many stars were on the board before the juice spilled? what they ask for. They do not ask how many more stars, they ask how many stars in total. Yeah, we're going to call the pool. Yeah. Okay. Um, most of us got it right. I thought this one was a little bit tricky so good job guys. Um, for this one we have to think back to like the very first class when we did find a pattern. So you can see that between every star there's three things that are not a star. So, the pattern repeats every four symbols. So then if we go around the board, and every fourth space gets a star, then we can end up counting that there's three extra stars. So then there's nine stars in total. Yeah, some of you pick the three. Yeah, that's, that's, you know, that means you have you need a three more stars. But the question asked how many stars in total. So they do not ask how many more stars. So pay attention to what the question asked for. Question 15. Evie brings 12 pieces of candy, Alice brings nine pieces of candy, and Irene doesn't bring any candy. They put all the pieces of candy together on the table and divide them equally among themselves. How many pieces of candy does each of the girls get? Please check your answer before you submit, that might help you correct some answers. Oh, this question is really fast. Can you see almost everybody got? Yeah, it's only been a minute, so I guess I will close the poll then. Yeah. Okay, so good job. So almost everybody got it correct, but we will quickly go through this question. Yeah. So here, for this question, so this is just a word question, but you know, you can draw a picture to help you to understand question. We realize the question, or you can just leave the equation. It depend on how you're familiar with either approach. So you can add all the pieces can be together, how many pieces you should have put together, 21. Then you need to divide the 21 equally among the three goals. So here that involve the multiplication and division. Yeah. So some of you might not be familiar with the times table. So I recommend you to remember the times table up to 10. For this question, if you do not know how to divide 21 by 3, so you might need to draw the picture. You can set up for each girl, one group, and you put the 21 pieces for each of them. Put one piece every time for each of them, and until you use up all the 21 pieces. So that's also another way to help you to divide the amount equally among all the girls. So if you do not know how to divide by three directly, but I recommend you to remember the times table. That would help you a lot. Elita, question 16. Kim is looking at seven silk paintings on a wall. On the left, he sees the dragon, and on the right, the butterfly. Which animal is to the left of the tiger and the lion, and to the right of the apricot? So this question has a lot of words, so make sure to read it really carefully. Yeah. So we do not highlight the questions for you. So you have to highlight in your mind, remind yourself what the question ask for. This one, they might not remember. Okay, so Elita, would it be possible we can stop the poll because they cannot see answer choice? I couldn't post a more picture here, so. Yeah, I just, I thought they could open the poll. I don't think the poll takes up the entire screen. Okay, yeah. I think it's like pretty small. But if you guys can't see the answer choices when the poll is active, I can close it. There should be an option to shrink the poll. Okay, so you can use your mouse to drag the poll window a little away from the question to show you the answer choices. I think we can close the poll. I think this one was a little bit harder for you guys, the answers are very spread out. I guess, yeah, this one could be really confusing because there's just so much going on, there's so many pictures and words. So let's see. So, um, the question gives us some clues, it says that the animals to the left of the tiger and lion, so you can see the tiger and the lion down there. So we know that whatever animal it is, it has to be on the left side of it, and it has to be to the right of the apricot. So you see there's the apricot, that's the second one, so it has to be on this side of that. So then that only leaves two options, it's either the crane or the flower, but because it asks which animal, we know that it has to be the crane because a flower isn't an animal, so the correct answer would be B. Yeah, so there is some Chinese words, don't get distracted, you just look at the pictures they give to you and read the question carefully. So next question, question 18. Spiral Jack jumps on the fence from one post to another. Each jump takes him one second. He makes four jumps ahead and then one jump back, and again four jumps ahead and one back, and so on. In how many seconds does Jack get from start to finish? So let's open the poll. Okay, I think we can end the poll, right? Yes. Good job. Most of you got the correct answer. The answer would be E, 14 seconds. So here for this question, you would consider what a type of question this one would be, what a strategy I can use. So you need to find out how many seconds. You actually need to find out how many steps because each step take one second. So here you have the fence here. You would know there are four jumps ahead and one jump back. So you would draw the four jumps ahead and then draw one jump back. So you draw the picture. Also, you can list in the table to make sure each step very clear. So once you continue, you make another four jump and then you come back. And then finally you make another four jumps until the finish poll. So once you figure it out, you would figure out you have a four jump ahead, one back, four jump ahead, one back, and a four jump ahead. And you cannot go back because you already reached the finish line. So remember, we did the similar question before. You always consider when you should stop the pattern. So this is a pattern and also involve this joint picture and also you can make a table. So that's all the strategy combined together could help you to solve this problem. Good job, everyone. Next one, Elita. Grandmother made 11 cookies. She decorated five cookies with raisins and then seven cookies with nuts. At least how many cookies were decorated with both raisins and nuts? So you want the least number of cookies decorated with both. And this is a five-point question, too. So remember what strategy you would use to solve the question. Okay, um, I think you guys were pretty fast with this one. I think, um, I can close it. It seems like almost all of you have answered it. So you guys did really good on this one for a five-point question. Almost all of you got it right. The correct answer was one cookie. So because we're trying to- it doesn't really matter which cookie grandma puts nuts on, so let's just say the first five have raisins on them. And then because we want the fewest number possible, we can start by filling the other six cookies with raisins. But then you notice we have one raisin left over, so that has to go on to one of the ones with nuts on it. Or wait, we have one nut left over, so that has to go to the one with raisins on it. Sorry, the colors are a little confusing. Thank you, Elita. So for this question, you would think about this is word problem and involved with small items. Sometimes it's using drawing picture would be very helpful. So this one we apply the drawing picture. So, okay, yeah, one is correct answer. So the next question. At a school party, Dan, Jack, and Ben each received a bag with 10 pieces of candy. Each of the boys ate just one piece of candy and gave one piece of candy to the teacher. How many pieces of candy do they have left altogether? The class will finish in about 20 minutes. But we will share the recording after the session. Okay, so let's share the poll. Yeah, good job. Good job. Mostly we'll get a correct answer. Yeah, I think this is a five-point question. Yeah, not really challenging. Yeah, if you understand the question here. So first, this is a word problem. Sometimes when we meet with word problem, we recommend you to consider drawing a picture to help you solve the problem. But when you draw a picture, you do not really need to draw the fancy picture. We show you some fancy picture, but when you try to solve the problem, you want to save the time, you just draw some simple symbols to help you. So here you could see each kid get 10 pieces first. And then each of them eat one piece and give away one piece. So they will lose two pieces for each of them. And then they will have eight left over for each of them. You combine together, you either add it together or you use eight times three, you can get 24. So this question, if you read the question very carefully, you understand what the question ask for. They wouldn't be very challenging for you. OK, next one, Elita. What number is covered by the flower? So you see the circle plus a triangle equals three, the triangle plus a triangle equals four, the triangle plus a square equals five, and then the circle plus a square equals the flower. Okay, I'll end the poll now. So you guys did really good on this one. It looks like almost all of you got it right. So great job. So let's see. So first let's start from the two triangles because that we only have one variable in one equation. So you can see that if two triangles adds up to four then one triangle would be half of four, which is two. And then we can see the circle and the triangle add up to three. So because the triangle is worth two, we know the circle would be three minus two, which gives us one. And then we can move on to the triangle plus a square equals five. So the square plus two would equal five because the triangle equals two. So then the square would be five minus two, which is three. So now that we know the values of the circle and the square we can just add them up pretty easily and we get four. Because one plus three is equal to four. Yeah, very good. Yeah, I think the five point question. So you all did very well. Yeah, really surprised. Yeah, very well. Good job. So now let's see the next question. In a box, there are three boxes and each of these boxes contains three smaller boxes. How many boxes are there in total? So pay attention, please read the question, what the question ask for. Read each part of the question. Okay, good job. Most of you got the correct answer. So let's see, for this question, they tell you the one box have three boxes inside. So you might need to use the drawing picture. You will analyze this question. You think, oh, this one, I can use the drawing picture because they mentioned three sizes of the boxes. So I just draw the big box first. And then I draw the three medium box inside. And then follow the condition. You draw another three smaller box in each of the medium box. So some of you pick the answer nine. They didn't ask the smallest box how many. They ask the total for all the three sizes. So you may use a list, list a large box one, medium box three, and a small box nine. So you add it together, they add up to 13. So the D, 13 is correct. Okay, good job. So remember, a lot of word questions, drawing picture is a very helpful, but you can draw very simple, the very easy pictures to help you solve the problem. Do not take too much time on drawing. So the last question for today. Yeah, so there are coins on the board. We want to have two coins in each column and two coins in each row. How many coins need to be removed? OK, I'll share the results. You guys did really good on this problem, I think. I thought this one was pretty hard, but it seems like most of you guys got it right. So the correct answer was C. And I thought you guys were really good with this one. Yeah, I agree with you. I think this might be a little challenging, but it looks like most of you got the correct answer. Yeah, good job. Yeah, you might just go through here. Yeah, so you can start by numbering how many coins are in each column and in each row. So you can see in each column, there's three in the first one, two in the second, three in the third, and two in the fourth. And then there's two coins in the first row, two coins in the second row, three coins in the third row, and three coins in the fourth row. So because we want there to be two coins in each row, we can start by removing a coin in a part where in a row where there's three coins and the column where there's three coins. So you can see that's what happens to the first coin we removed. That coin is in a column that has three coins and in a row that also has three coins. And then we do the same thing with the second coin. So now it looks like there's two coins in every column and two coins in every row, which is exactly what we want. So because we removed two coins, the correct answer would be 2. But you can also do it a different way because you could remove, there's two ways you can remove coins from this. So this is a second way. Notice how we're still removing the coin from the part where there's three coins in the column and three coins in the row. So that's how we know which coin to remove for this. But either way, there's two coins that need to be removed. Yeah. So after you move it, you should get two coins for each row or each column. So actually for me, if I want to do this question, I might use the drawing picture to draw on the charts here, a table here. So because they do not want the three more than two in the rows or columns. So I would figure out which rows, which columns, we have three. So I would draw, can you see the first vertical one? I have three. And the second vertical one, the third column, we also have three. So then I would identify the rows. So I would figure out the third rows and the fourth rows. Both have three. So you would figure out, you would find there are four. Yeah, can you see there are four? So you can see the yellow highlighted and the green highlighted. So when this connected, that means you will consider to move, remove those checkers, those coins. Yeah. So but you remember, once you move this one, the upper left one first, so you cannot move, remove the same rows. You have to consider another row. So that's make the first solution here. So I think the drawing picture also helpful. Yeah, so you can draw the lines, draw all the three coins, the lines, and then you'll find any connections over there. And those are the coins you need to remove. Good job, everyone. So we are really happy. Today, we saw more questions. And we hope you applied the four-step method to solve each question. And later in the practice, and whatever the later, some other, the practice you want to do, so we would like you to remember the strategies we learned in the past nine lessons. And you can remember, yeah, you remember the find a pattern and a drawing picture would be the most popular strategy you would use. Yeah, and also the others make a table might be a little harder because sometimes you are not sure how to make rows, how to make columns. So you need to read the question to understand what condition they give to you, how many rows you might make, how many columns you might make, and name them. And also remember, sometimes when you make a table, so the table, you might not find fixed rows or fixed columns about the table. So you might need to add rows or add columns when you try to solve the problem. That's called a growing table. So most of the table when you make, it might be fixed on the number of rows or columns. But some questions involve this growing table. So the rows or columns not fixed, you will get the exact number of the rows or columns once you solve the problem. Yeah, so for the make organized list also really helpful. But when you make organized list, you need to make the list for the numbers in a sequential order, for the names or items in alphabetical order. So that would be very easy for you to figure out, do you miss anything or do you repeat anything? Yeah, so guess check, you will use a lot. So I would like to see when you try to solve the problem, 75 minutes for the 24 questions. And sometimes maybe the last one or two minute, you will find that you still have some question. You really do not know how to solve it. Even you try the strategy you learned before. So at this moment, we recommend you do not leave the answer blank. There is no guessing penalty for math kangaroo computation. So you can make a guess. There are five answers. So find a reasonable guess. So pick one answer, fill in the bubble, do not leave the answer blank. So with a guessing, you might make the answer, you might get the correct answer. You might not lose a point. But if you leave the answer blank, you definitely would get the zero point for that question. So for all the strategies we learned, we like you to reinforce and review all the past recordings. So those really helpful. And also we have a lot of practice test online. So you can just try to make more practice before the computation. And Elita, so do you have any recommendations to the students? I would say now that we've learned all of the fundamentals and everything, you can definitely go do some practice tests. That will probably be the most beneficial for you guys. But also just try to stay calm during the competition. It can be a little bit stressful because you're under time. So I think while you're practicing, you should also try putting a time limit on yourself. But other than that, you guys should try and have fun because it is a really fun competition. Math kangaroo is definitely more fun than other competitions. Yeah. So when you practice more, you will find that the questions, it's not really focused on the calculations. It really focused on the problem solving strategies and it show you a lot of puzzles, riddles. It's really fun, yeah. So we would like you to enjoy the challenges and also enjoy the learning and solve the problems. So we also want to mention, so after this session, we would have a section B so that would start in January. We have both webinar or the group lessons. So the webinar, it would be the recording shared after class, but there is no interaction between the teachers and the students. There is no homework, we leave. And for the group lesson, we have small size. So there are more interaction so between the teacher and the students. So we already started registration. So the new lesson will start in January. And also the set B, the difference between set A and set B. Set A is a little basic level. We introduce some popular strategies. And in set B, we will have a more advanced, the same strategy we'll share with you. And we work more on the four point questions and the five point questions. And also in set B, we introduce some new topics. So yeah, so those, if you like to continue, so please visit our website and you can sign up for the set B, either webinars or group lessons. So our class ends, but the study never ends. So keep a practice every day that would help you to improve. Yeah, so sometimes, the questions you worked on, you might try the different way to solve them. Yeah, so not to only one approach because this is, when you do not do the computation, when there is not time pressure, you try to solve the same question in a different way to help you to understand more about this type of question. So that would be super helpful. Yeah, Elita, do you have any suggestions when they do the, whatever do the computation or do the practice test? Yeah. Yeah, I think make sure you check your work a lot and try to think if you could use any different methods to solve the questions, because the more methods you can come up with to solve a question, the better you'll get at doing just all the methods in general. Yeah, so one thing I want to mention, make a table is not easy, but it's a super helpful when you try to solve some question involve a bigger data set, more conditions, more categories. So we recommend you, when you try to solve some easy questions, you try to use table to solve those question, help you to build a more solid, you know, the table skills. So later when you meet the harder question, you do not know how to solve it. Even guess check cannot help you. So you draw the picture, you draw the table. Yeah, I mean, those type of question with a bigger data set, with more categories. So you draw the table would super helpful. So please try to encourage yourself, practice making table when you do some other questions. Yeah, so I think that's all for today. So we are really happy to work with you in the past 10 weeks. And please continue your hard work. And we wish you the best luck in the next year competition and also happy holidays. Elita, yeah. Yeah, thank you guys. Okay, thank you everyone. Yeah, bye bye.

Mexican Guru webinar

four-step method

math problem solving

2012 test problems

strategies

practice sessions

advanced sessions

competition tips

guessing penalty