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# IMO : what do you have to know?

What topics of math do you need to know to have a chance in IMO? Could they be covered on Khan Academy? Thank you in advance!

Note by Fedor Panafidin
1 year, 10 months ago

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Khan Academy is good for the basics and can take you up to the intermediate level. But to master the intermediate level and go for the advanced level, you have to practice from different IMO books or from websites which have IMO type questions; one of which is, of course, brilliant.org.

- 1 year, 10 months ago

Thank you, but what exactly should i study on Khan Academy? Could you give me names of some of the books?

- 1 year, 10 months ago

There are no specific list of topics to be followed. Start learning those which you feel you're weak in. Start solving previous imo papers and if they are too difficult, learn from their solutions (don't just go for the solution immediately after seeing the problem). I prefer seeing only a couple of lines at a time so that I only get a hint at first and then try to solve the problem. If I still can't solve it, I see the next few couple of lines and so on... Try this! And you may buy any IMO book recommended by various websites.

- 1 year, 10 months ago

Ok.

- 1 year, 10 months ago

@Maharnab Mitra I meant what do you need to be really good in, for example, great knowledge of set theory wouldn't be as usefull as great knowledge of number theory...

- 1 year, 9 months ago

According to me, geometry and number theory are the most important. Set theory and combinatorics also comes in handy sometimes.

- 1 year, 9 months ago

Ok, thanks.

- 1 year, 9 months ago