Year 2 Lesson 21 Plan

Year 2 Lesson Plan 21 - Math Olympiad Review Quiz, Statistics

(30 min)MATH OLYMPIAD REVIEW QUIZ
Lesson 21 departs from our usual format. The main weekly session is a quiz over concepts we have studied so as to give you guidance on what to stress in the remaining 3 or 4 lessons. There are 22 problems which are representative of the kinds of problems students will find at Math Olympiad. Students are to work independently and without help. The quiz will take about 30 minutes, give or take 10 minutes. Use the remaining time to review answers and approaches after you collect all the papers. We are interested in trends of problems that many of the kids missed. You might make a histogram or a tally by problem of how many students missed each one so as to know what to stress.

The results of this quiz will help you decide how to form your kids into teams. Try to include one strong kid on every team to prevent forming teams that will compete badly.

If teachers or parents ask your opinion, this quiz will also serve you in advising them in properly placing kids in 7th grade math. Since it has a range of problems across all the essential learning areas, it is one indicator of which kids could rise to the challenge of algebra, and later on that of geometry.
If you have just finished a local competition, you may use the rest of the class period to review the results of that. Be positive--let the kids know where they did well and compare their progress against themselves earlier in the year.
(30 min) STATISTICS
The second practice this week involves a brief review of statistics and a competition on Functions and Relationships. The statistics review homework is begun as an in-class exercise.

In dealing with a group of numbers, there are particular numbers that we are interested in to give meaning to them as a group. Megan got these scores on her quizzes: 5, 6, 8, 7, 9, 9, 10. What number best predicts how she will do on her next quiz?
```
     Minimum     Smallest number             5
     Maximum     Largest number             10
     Range       Maximum minus minimum       5
     Median      Middle number (crossing 
                 out largest and smallest)   8
     Mode        Most frequent number        9
     Mean        Average (sum/how many)      7.71 
```
Which one do you like best? The answer depends on what you really want to know. If you want to predict the lowest her grade might be, you would choose the minimum. If the grade cannot be fractions or decimals, you would have to choose the median or the mode, or round the average. You might even want to give the more recent tests a special weighting if you thought she was learning more in recent tests.