What is SASMO?
For Lower Primary students (Primary 2 and Primary 3) who are excelling at school math, the SASMO might be up their alley. SASMO, which stands for Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad, is a competitive math contest that will challenge and engage young minds. As this would likely be their first foray into a formal test, the SASMO is a great way to hone their exam-taking skills in preparation for the P3 GEP exam.
Parents, with the intention of exposing their children to the world of math olympiad, can consider the SASMO as a stepping stone. While the eligibility for most prestigious Math Olympiads (such as RMO, APMOPS and NMOS) begins in Primary 4, the Math Olympiad skills and strategies tested in those competitions require students to have a strong ability to apply problem-solving strategies in complex math problems and that begins in Lower Primary.
Especially for students who are highly curious about the subject, starting them early in Math Olympiad gives them ample time and space to develop strong foundations and thinking process.
Competition and Exam Format
The exam is conducted in-person, lasting 90 minutes.
It is split into 2 sections:
- Section A (15 MCQ): 2 points for correct answer, 0 points for unanswered questions, 1 point deducted for wrong answer
- Section B (Open-Ended): 4 points for correct answer, 0 points for unanswered question or wrong answer.
What you might want to take note of is that all answers in Section B are integers from 0 to 9999, which is a helpful prompt for your child as they check their final answer.
Total score: 85 marks. Every student will begin with 15 points.
SASMO might be your child’s first-ever exam. Thus, you might want to prepare your child adequately on how to submit his/her final answer. From past experience, students will receive a question booklet and an Answer Entry Sheet (AES). They will be expected to shade and fill in their answers on the AES and failure to do so might result in a loss of marks.
SMKC vs SASMO
The key difference between SMKC and SASMO is the syllabus. The SMKC’s syllabus is less advanced than the SASMO, making it suitable for students with no math olympiad background. The SMKC tests students on their ability to apply their knowledge based on the Singapore Math curriculum taught in school, with a heavy emphasis on visual-spatial awareness and number sense.
However, the SASMO requires students to be able to master the syllabus beyond what is tested in school. For SASMO, non-routine problems will take up most of the paper. To solve such questions with efficiency and ease, math olympiad techniques will be a useful tool in students’ arsenal.
For the full syllabus, you may also refer to our article, Is SASMO hard?
Analysis of P2 and P3 SASMO across 2019-2022
So what are some patterns that we have observed across the years? We’ve analysed the past-year papers for P2 and P3 SASMO so you don’t have to!
The topic that appears most frequently in both P2 and P3 SASMO is Combinatorics
With less than 2 months to the SASMO, understanding the module that takes up the highest proportion of the paper will help you to narrow down the focus of your SASMO preparation.
From analysing the P3 SASMO paper from 2019-2022, up to 40% of the paper tests on combinatorics. So what exactly constitutes combinatorics? Combinatorics is a type of question that requires mathematical operation involving arrangement and finding the number of possible combinations.
Students who are not exposed to Math Olympiad and combinatorics techniques can get away with the listing method due to a small number of possibilities. However, in more complicated combinatorics problems, they will need to understand that to compute the number of possibilities, they can simply multiply 2 types x 5 colours.
Combinatorics will almost always appear as the last 2 questions
Typically, we will see the most challenging question appearing at the tail-end of the paper. Unfortunately, the toughest question is usually combinatorics and this is also a topic that many students struggle with.
Especially for Primary 3 students preparing for SASMO, cryptarithm (or number puzzles), a topic under Combinatorics, will definitely be a topic to master. From analysing past-year papers, number puzzles will almost always appear in the SASMO paper.
Need tips on Cryptarithm? Check out our tutorial and DM us for additional practices on cryptarithms.
Number Theory and Observation appear consistently for 1-2 questions
Now that we have talked about the most frequently tested topics, you might also be keen to find out what are some of the other topics with lower weightage.
As compared to SMKC, you will realise that observation questions are not as common, differentiating the two competitions. This also means that students with weaker visual-spatial ability can have a shot at the SASMO if they are well-prepared.
SASMO Preparation
Now that we have analysed the P2 and P3 SASMO, we have developed a SASMO preparation guide that will help your child to get up to speed for the SASMO happening in March 2024.
Students will need to master both the knowledge points tested and their ability to apply those skills under time pressure. As such, our stellar teaching team has developed a 9-day Daily Math Doses that you can follow along. On top of these practices, students will be equipped with the necessary knowledge to complete the math practices with our 30-minute tutorial.
Connect with our education specialist to follow along our 9-day plan and tutorial. Additionally, you will also receive personalised feedback and marking to assess your child’s current progress.
This plan is also available for P1-P2 SMKC students.
Here is what parents have to say!
On top of weekly practices, fortify your child’s learning and accelerate your SMKC and SASMO scores through our mock tests that will simulate the actual exam environment so that they can put their foot forward in the actual competition.
Reserve a place for our SMKC and SASMO mock test by connecting with our education specialist.
