BHUBANESWAR: With 1000 children grappling with 200 questions, putting in best efforts to solve all of them as fast as they could, it was a sight worth viewing at the 10th All Odisha UCMAS and Mental Arithmetic Competition held here on Saturday.
The students had come from 70 Universal Concept Mental Arithmetic System (UCMAS) across the State to participate in the competition. Children between the age group of four and 12 years took the tests.
Dean of Veterinary Science College, OUAT, RC Patra inaugurated the competition. The students were given a question paper with 200 complex mathematical problems which they had to solve within eight minutes. The ones with abacus, had a five-minute deadline.
Director of Bhubaneswar Genius Academy Sanjukta Shadangi said children, as young as four years old, are introduced to calculations using abacus.
"Visualisation is a major component used for calculations done through abacus," she said.
After six months into the course, the abacus is taken away from the students and they have to calculate mentally. The children will be awarded with champions trophy and runners-up prize. There will be one champions of champion, the best performer of the 1000 students.