"Jesus! I told you these comparisons between the USAMO, the TSTs and the IMO come from one of the national team coaches for the IMO!" Krista clamors with vehemence before Jennifer while she hands her the statement of the 2023 IMO, which she did with Geneviève as a dress reversal for the USAMO.
"The EGMO and the IMO, both the same, I accept" Jennifer comments, "but never did I imagine the USAMO to be that close to the IMO in terms of difficulty! To see how the AIME and the USAMO happened for you and your friends, they dropped like flies one after the other"
"All these competitions are as much math tests as they are endurance tests. If you lack mental endurance, maybe your future as a mathlete would instead be made of curricular contests or of speed contests. That said, on proof contests, there is no shame to leave a problem blank if it's completely beyond our capabilities"
"I might have proven that I am adept enough in proofs to stand a chance in the highest mathletics echelons" Marcia adds, "I consider my mental gearbox as my greatest mathletic asset, so that I can have just the right mental speed for every occasion, that I know at what level of detail to go to solve a problem"
Later on, Marcia sends the homework and the class notes, without relying on Gen to complete these before late Sunday morning (Louisiana time) or Sunday night (Kutaisi time). Her friend may want to keep her mental energy to solve these six problems.
-----------------------
Let's hope that this practice run on the 2023 IMO will not make me shimmer a mirage! My teammates at home fell to give me a chance to compete in that one last contest so I must honor them here! And to honor everyone that supported me in this parish, in Louisiana and whoever else in the United States for whom I'm an academic inspiration source, Geneviève thinks, late at night, after the apero she did with the other girls the rest of the team met yesterday. And this Hungarian, Hajmal, who pushed Gen to rush yesterday for the second clue of a treasure hunt under the impression of dealing with a kleptomaniac.
More than for her, the culture shock is even greater for her teammates. At the onset, with Gen, they accepted her as an exceptional case, they acknowledged her place was well-deserved, but it's there they realize mathletic excellence isn't a question of race!
-----------------------
In the meantime, Lucy is detained at the Fairfax County Detention Center while awaiting a verdict. She might have recorded a guilty plea, her criminal record was blank until this overdose that looked like a failed suicide attempt. The young lady thinks her life is ruined because of her crime, however. To have been in possession of sufficient quantities of Ritalin for an overdose without prescription.
"My crime cheated me out of the EGMO! Right now, someone out there is solving math problems I should be solving!" Lucy laments in her cell.
"What the hell is the EGMO anyway?" asks a prison guard that knows nothing about girls' mathletics.
Even the residents of Geneviève's parish of origin still harbor false ideas of what the EGMO contains for questions, or of its format. Some people think it's about bursts of speed, others, solving college-level math problems, but the only thing all these false perceptions have in common is that it requires a lot of mathematical talent to compete, just not necessarily the same kind of talent.
Then Lucy is not surprised to hear the jailer ask what it is exactly, other than there are math problems on the menu. She abstains from talking about typical problems of this contest fearing the jailer won't understand anything.
Further, the parish newspaper also abstained from supplying problem statements from past USAMOs, EGMOs or IMOs for the same reason, despite the comparison games they played in the previous months.
"It's obvious to me you're much better at math than I am. You seem to be implying that the problems are hard, it makes me not want to see you solve one" the jailer speaks to Lucy.
Maybe... maybe Lucy could earn her probation with math tutoring here! Hearing her talk about the EGMO, she is way more advanced than the inmates that need her! the jailer thinks while he knows a lot of inmates could barely do math on a middle school level according to the Common Core, let alone problems from international high school competitions? He imagines, however, that Lucy still has the intellectual level she used to have.
-----------------------
But in Kutaisi, after having eaten a continental breakfast, the girls take up positions in the great room, with the contestants seated according to their last names' alphabetical order. Nevertheless, for this competition, Gen bears the code USA4; all contestants are given a three-letter code for their country of origin, and a digit from 1 to 4, to reduce the personal relationship bias sources in grading.
"Even though, as with the USAMO, the problems are ordered according to their expected difficulty, it doesn't mean that the third problem will necessarily be harder to you than the previous two. That said, since we don't expect all three to be solved, prioritize what you find the two easiest, or maybe just one" Geneviève adds, while her teammates end up in other seats.
"Good luck!" Claudia tells her in passing before getting seated.
Normally I reproduce the performances on a practice test while taking the actual test. Assuming the practice run on the 2023 IMO was representative of these 3 competitions at the same time, the only reason why I wouldn't get on the podium would be that I get a panic attack. With a gold medal, the third comparison game of the parish newspaper will make sense. Nevertheless, Xiao is supposed to be the closest comparable to me according to the second comparison game. People at home all count on me. It should be good so long as I don't panic, she thinks, while in the first minutes of the competition, she finds herself in a crowded but quiet room. As for the volunteer proctors, they are, for the most part, as powerless over the problems as the Venomous Agendas faithful would be! And everyone is handed a geometry set, pencils and erasers, as well as a bottle of water and snacks.
After an hour after the start of the competition, the first contestant to suffer from a panic attack, Hajmal, starts hyperventilating and she rapidly loses her focus as well as her ability to think cogently by the same token. Jesus! Why am I her? Of course? To steal and leave Kutaisi with maximum loot! Why solve these math problems that I am stuck on while I could take advantage of it to steal other things? Or maybe a theft could allow me to be unstuck on these two problems I have left! That I leave this place with a bronze medal if push comes to shove, Hajmal thinks, while even thinking about the next step of the 2nd problem, or what to steal, gives her goosebumps and cold sweats, to finally scream in Hungarian and admit her powerlessness. Powerlessness over her temptations to steal, or over problem #2?
Meanwhile, her opponents now know they are vulnerable, and, for some reason, there's only Gen that suspect the Hungarian is victim of a panic attack because she desires to exploit her panic attack for something other than hard panic. I must not let the Hungarian kleptomaniac get to me, that I prevented from stealing the second clue yesterday; the Hungarians surely have more than one trick up their sleeves! They probably rely on a domino effect of panic! Or she simply desires to commit theft. I might be smarter than a panic attack, but I am not immune to it! Gen thinks, while Hajmal brings contestants in her panic attack, but unlike her, panic without an ulterior motive.
At the onset, the proctors seemed amazed to see so many girls as brilliant as them assembled in the same room. Hajmal has sown doubt in their minds, another contestant, Portuguese this time (for some reason Portugal competes at the EGMO for the first time), surrenders and cries once she leaves the room. What madness these problems are? If I can't solve any of these... fingers crossed for tomorrow! Tomorrow is my only chance to show I am not an impostor, or that my intelligence hasn't otherwise vanished! What am I doing here? She thinks after leaving the room and recovered her personal belongings.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
"DESISTOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The Portuguese contestant howls some distance away from the competition room, but whose occupants hear anyway.
In addition, they start believing the contestants in question are paying the price of their inexperience at that level of problems. Or of their poor preparation. But Gen continues, relatively unfazed by her opponents' panic attacks, and she has good hope to be able to solve the third problem before the end of the allotted time.
As much as Hajmal seems to struggle walking because her legs seem to be a little numbed, she looks for an object that appears stealable, as useless as it might be. And the hallway is full of other contestants that are also victim of panic attacks. By now she looks to exploit not only her own panic attack, but also her opponents from other countries, and also sensing the right opportunity to commit the theft she seeks to exploit her panic attack for. At the same time, her cold sweats start transforming into fevers and her head overheats while thinking she found a solution to her problems. A first aid kit. It might not relieve my headaches induced by this panic attack, but what looks most like painkillers here are these bandages; I may as well steal the roll of bandages while I'm at it! Hajmal thinks while she takes the bandage rolls to put in in her pocket. And then close the kit.
A while later, the Hungarian kleptomaniac returns to the room, a little in pain perhaps, but also relieved to have stolen something before continuing her attempt to solve problem #2. It took a girl like me to exploit a panic attack to steal something! Or should I say a thief that has the intelligence required for mathletics to be worth practicing, Hajmal reflects while her body is recovering from the effects of this panic attack.
But it was only the beginning of a long race of attrition. Several girls preferred to stop everything and admit defeat long before the end of the regulation 4h30. And of that there was a lot of nationalities represented. Ouch... this reminds me of my participation at the AIME but with more difficult problems and with more participants! Calm down! Gen thinks, while, at half-time, there are already some empty seats, and the contestants remaining know it will intensify soon enough. Especially when the competitors start exhausting the range of what they can still solve.
If, during the first half, there were relatively few contestants that stopped before the end, in the second half, they didn't need to wait for very long to see the contestants leave the room, with a feeling of powerlessness for most of them. So many contestants having given up attempted to solve one or two problems; those who tried solving the third problem were a little intimidated by the loss of morale coming from the intensification of the attrition race taking place.
It didn't appear harder to me than the last IMO, but one must keep in mind this contest is definitely not for everyone. As much as some could tell themselves that with an adequate training regimen everyone can do it, other people can give up long before reaching their personal limits. Speaking of personal limits, I got close to them on several occasions in the past three months, Gen thinks, while she can't help but think about Krista, who had the same kind of panic attack at the USAMO that some of her opponents are having right now.
A very bad first day for several contestants and, as time flies, the room feels increasingly empty. Several of them hold on in hopes of being able to solve the third problem, or even the second one (depending on how they defined the order of the problems).
Like Gen, who, with three minutes remaining on the clock, tries as she could to finalize her solution to this third problem, and same goes of Claudia, but Hajmal and Xiao, however, made some headway on this problem #3 without harboring any hope to finish it. I must find a way to finish this 3rd problem, and that I ensure that what I am saying makes sense, and in 3 minutes! She thinks, while there is only one or two lines missing to solve the problem, at least according to her.
And her facial pH starts increasing suddenly during this ultimate final sprint of 3 minutes, for which less than a third of the contestants are still in the room in one last attempt to solve the « current » problem. For the girls in the lead, it could mean the last one, for others that might not have a shot at the gold medal, the second, and a few that resisted temptations to panic but couldn't hope to solve more than one problem on the first day. At the room's exit, from which Gen gets out without being safe on the 3rd problem... in fact no one is safe on it.
"How has it been for you?" Claudia asks, a little tired but not too panicked.
"Good; we can't say as much of some other competitors, though" Gen answers Claudia's question.
"It feels a little harder than the USAMO, more like the TSTs, but I expected that going in" Xiao comments immediately afterward.
-----------------------
Marcia, at home, starts dreaming not of her friend gaining the gold medal at the EGMO, but to make believe to the quiz bowl team taking part to the national championship there is an EGMO gold medalist on the Venomous Agendas' roster, and to make panic a good number of opponents with this trickery, especially those coming from schools that are a little weak mathletically. And not just Jesuit, the quiz bowl state champions but who didn't have a single student at the AIME, much less on the quiz bowl team. That said, it's fairly common for strong mathletics schools to have, for quiz bowl, at least one AIME participant.
And it's ignoring that, from a quiz bowl standpoint, however, between an AIME contestant and an EGMO gold medalist, the difference between the two is, in a game situation, ceteris paribus, mainly a difference in the psychological game it can induce. After all, the mathematical level of quiz bowl does not exceed the AMC12.
But she relives the final against Jesuit, in a flashback about overtime. On what cost the Venomous Agendas the gold medal. After 3 overtime tossups, both teams are still tied, and the 4th overtime question is asked. A geography question on which one of the male veterans, William, slapped the team with an interrupt penalty (and therefore lose 5 points), making the Venomous Agendas lose; their opponents thus won the gold medal by default.
Krista, however, awakens with this mental clip that is replayed in her mind of an accelerated attrition race so that 4h30 of competition is reduced to about a minute of clip. During breakfast with her father, she talks about the content of this mental clip that seems to stick to her skin as well as to her mind.
"Dad, imagine two hundred fifty girls like Gen, Marcia, or I in the same room, and that start panicking on mathematics questions one after the other"
"Honey, what does that represent? Did you have a bad dream?"
"Yes, I had a bad dream, but it atrociously looked like past EGMOs"
"You showed me practice question that Gen and you have used and... this bad dream is a little too close from the reality of taking part in these competitions that you both aimed to qualify for. If that's the kind of math questions it takes to make you panic!"
"A challenge that can turn into a nightmare. But so many on the team will seek to avenge their mathletic failures at the VMC. The Math Madness defeat for some, the elimination at the AIME for others, my underperformance at the USAMO..."
-----------------------
The second day of competition is very similar to the first one from a psychological standpoint in that panic attacks happen one after the other. A second attrition race, but problem number 6 seems to cause a lot of trouble to everyone, even including girls like Claudia, Griet, Hajmal, or even Gen and Xiao. None of the five seemed any more confident of their respective solutions to this problem than they were for problem number 3 the previous day, well, no one.
Of course, the girls didn't panic in the same order as yesterday, but in general, the contestants that panicked on the first day also did so on the second. My God! Nerves can truly make a difference here! It's there my experience of competitions with public in open air is useful to me; I could better manage my state of mind than so many other contestants that I knew better than to underestimate! Most of those who panic must have done math contest behind closed doors only! Gen thinks, while the competition proper is over for her.
And she plays sports during the lunch period, such as fencing but with air sabers, against Hajmal, and Claudia later, in an attempt to release the tension accumulated during these two intense days spent in a large room to do mathematics. Then, after that, excursions with all contestants, which finally does not leave much time to the participants on Sunday night to do their assignments from their home institutions. A return to known intellectual territory for them.
Tuesday night (Kutaisi time), the closing ceremony is held, but unlike the opening ceremony, it's out of question to make them watch that livecast from the school's auditorium, it would be happening during class hours. Then the mathletics team decides to hold, in lieu of the Tuesday practice, a deferred showing of the closing ceremony, where the results are announced, and the medals are handed to the participants.
Music is played by local musicians and then comes the announcement of the results, starting with honorable mentions, then bronze medalists, who walk by groups of 10 on the stage, with the flags of their respective countries. Then come silver medalists, and in this group are the other two teammates of Gen and Xiao.
The crowd is cheering on the video (and later at the auditorium of her home school) while the gold medalists are brought on stage, with, in the same group that receive their gold medals, Claudia, Griet, Hajmal, and, of course, Gen and Xiao. Now, more than ever, I feel like I'm the brightest girl in the world! To the eyes of the loved ones, of the people in the parish, I already was, even though I didn't flaunt it, Gen thinks while the gold medal is put on her neck.
But the atmosphere is not at all the same at the Fairfax County Detention Center, where Lucy is still detained, awaiting judgment. Her cell mate feels like there's something fishy.
"And now, because of my crime, someone else has won a medal that could, and should, have been mine!" Lucy cries in front of the other inmate.
"You already pled guilty, and all you care about is what the crime prevented you from doing?" her cellmate asks Lucy, without having any idea of what she's talking about beyond it being some competition of which she was a favorite prior to the overdose.