Olimpíada de Matemática: que preciosidades matemáticas envolvem os problemas desta competição e qual o seu impacto para o professor de matemática sem experiência em olimpíadas e a sua importância para o estudante?

Abstract

The Mathematical Olympiad in searching of new talent has the characteristic of being an intellectual competition, using for this challenging problems which require from the student his creative ability in solving them. In general, if there is no specific preparation, we are faced with several barriers that are hidden in the theories. This may be common to both student as the teacher, and especially in the final stages of the Mathematical Olympiad. A feeling of frustration covers us when we do not know how we should address such barriers. Here we have a proposal in an attempt to bridge the gap that occurs with mathematics in basic schools and Mathematical Olympiad. The dynamics of this proposal was based on experiences in preparing students for the Mathematical Olympiad and somehow trying to show how we can theoretically grow through the issues involved. We seek through solving some problems chosen to draw some interesting strategies for solving them by using little theory. In such resolutions we do reviews on these strategies and possible difficulties that the student and / or teacher may find. This experience indicated that there are several problems that encourage young people to enjoy and take an interest in solving problems enough for this to develop his reasoning through issues that have abilities for learning. Summarizing, we complement our discussion by analysing several books and texts used in this experience to prepare students for various competitions within the Mathematical Olympiad.