Yesterday was the day for students from 75 nations and territories to compete among each other in the practical exam at Hanoi National University of Education.
Yesterday was the day for students from 75 nations and territories to compete among each other in the practical exam at Hanoi National University of Education. Yesterday’s wonderful weather may well have aided our contestants, plus the Vietnamese organising committee and volunteers went out of their way, as usual, to facilitate participants’ needs with modern well-equipped labs. Despite the arduous five hours to take the exam, the participating students still felt comfortable and were able to complete their examination in good time. In the middle of the exam, a small break was provided for students to eat some snacks to keep their strength up so they could continue without any problems.
Students before the big moment
Contestants working hard on the practical problems
Volunteers waiting for students to finish the exam
This year’s exam included three problems, which together made up the total mark of 40. After five hours working on the exam, the majority of students commented that while the problems were very interesting they were rather long and quite demanding to solve in the time. Also, because of the length of the questions, a number of students could not finish all the final problems. However, many of them expressed their satisfaction with their performances. Indeed, one student from the Australian team - Samuel Jacob Alsop, the silver medalist from last year - reckoned that while these problems were lengthy they were pitched well within the competitors’ ability [and he managed to finish all of them].
Interviewinga student how he performed during the exam
In summary, the exam was undertaken smoothly without incident. However, students still need to complete the upcoming theoretical exam to get them closer to the medals. With such a good start, it can only be hoped that the students will move on to have an equally solid performance in the forthcoming exam.