Intermediate Maths Challenge 2026 - UKMT

On the 28th January I took part in the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge at school. We received the results today, and I was really pleased to find out that I had achieved a Gold Award and qualified for the Pink Kangaroo round.

I always look forward to the UKMT challenges that we do each year. They’re a very different kind of maths experience compared to what we usually do in class, because the focus is so heavily on problem solving. What I enjoy most is how the questions are often built on quite simple mathematical ideas, yet they can become surprisingly challenging because they require you to think about the problem from the right angle. Quite often there’s a clever trick or insight that suddenly unlocks the whole question.

This year I tried a slightly different approach when preparing for the challenge. Instead of mainly doing mixed past papers like I had in previous years, I worked through problems from Intermediate Problems by Andrew Jobbings. The questions are organised by topic, which meant I could focus on particular types of problems and start to notice patterns in the techniques used to solve them. I found this really helpful because it exposed me to lots of different “tricks” and strategies that often appear in these kinds of questions.

I’m really looking forward to the Pink Kangaroo round in a few months and the new challenges it will bring.