£500 prize to one lucky but bright person who answers the question below correctly
Mathematicians set Chinese test
Anyone wishing to enter the competition
should go to the RSC website and send
the correct answer by Friday 27 April to be included in a prize draw.
Maths enthusiasts are being challenged to answer a sample
question from Chinese university entrance tests.
The tests are set for prospective science
undergraduates.
The UK's Royal Society of Chemistry is offering a £500 prize
to one lucky but bright person who answers the question below correctly.
It has also published a test used in a "well known and
respected" English university - the society is not naming it - to assess the
strength of incoming science undergraduates' maths skills.
A glance at the two questions reveals how much more advanced
is the maths teaching in China, where children learn the subject up to the age
of 18, the society says.
Science undergraduates in England are likely not to have studied maths beyond
GCSE level at the age of 16, it says.
It has sounded a warning about Britain's future economic
prospects which it claims are threatened by competition from scientists in
China.
RSC chief executive Richard Pike says mathematics is seen as
integral to the sciences in China and its economy.
"There, the concept of remedial courses at university would be
inconceivable.
"UK chemistry departments are often world-renowned for their
creativity; however, mathematics tests set in England by many universities for
undergraduate chemistry students in their first term to diagnose remedial
requirements are disconcertingly simple.
"They encapsulate the challenge facing this country," says Dr
Pike.
But a maths professor in England, William Shaw, has said the
emphasis in mathematics teaching varies from country to country and the RSC's
attack is "nonsense".
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