Competitive Mathematics for Gifted Students - Level 1 Combo: ages 7-9 2nd Edition

The problems are designed to build superior reasoning in students. They are also designed to be solved with pen and paper getting the young learners used to organize and write down the solving steps to reach the conclusion. Some parents assistance may be needed in using the book and finding solutions.

I have been using this book for my 2nd grader. The book has good set of problems. It's a good book for parents who are mathematically inclined. If you are not, then you may find the introduction material at the beginning of chapters to be inadequate. My son initially found the material to be "hard" but has gotten used to the language and nature of problems and is able to make good progress towards solution most of the time, independently. And then I discuss with him the solution afterwards.However, the book falls short in following ways:1) The naming and organization of chapters is confusing. Suggest that they change the name of chapter from "Practice one" to more meaningful "Counting Practice One" and "Observation and Logic Practice One" rather that five different "practice one" chapters.2) Same goes for organization of chapters that have solutions to the problems. There are four "Solutions to Practice One" chapters in this book. Very inconvenient and annoying for a busy parent.3) Hard to quickly find solutions to practice problems. Perhaps a consequence of #1 and #2 problems mentioned above.4) Finally, the book needs to be a consumable. Or at least make it easy to take the pages out. Kids are more likely to solve problems page by page, chapter by chapter. And its unlikely that you can give the book to kids or put it on their table without scaring them away from their desks!

This book teaches students how to think deeply about various mathematical concepts and how to approach and solve problems. Excellent book for advanced young kids or older kids.

Excellent questions to help build the confidence of a math student, regardless of preparing for a competition.

I think the layout could be improved placing the answers section right after the problems. The solution section is very good and the book has helped my 8 year old. But as an adult who was also a math major I have read statistics books that were more fun to go through that this book. Math should be more fun.

This book is very helpful and extra dose of math. I let my kid do practice every day. Great book for extra knowledge.

Content: Generally good, and the only thing of it's kind that I've found. Mind provoking problems, which are interesting. The problems force the child to account for every word, and this helps the child discriminate useful vs. unuseful information given. Layout: It seems to be a compilation of several publications, and sections have not been relabeled to fit as a whole. For example, there are a lot of practice 1s, and several solutions to practice 1. So this makes it a little hard to navigate around the book.

This as an excellent book for math kangaroo preparations specifically and math concepts in general. I got it for my 8 y-old and we found this book fairly late. However the concepts are very nicely laid out for any kid interested in math. This along with the practice tests both will be a great aid for any kid interested in looking at math differently. True to math being a way of thinking, the book more concentrates on concepts and thinking rather than complex operations.