Hello everyone, and welcome to the new subscribers! After a busy few weeks of competitions in August/September, I have an assortment of updates and information to share with you.
The 2018 question paper from the MSO Mental Calculations World Championship was available here (PDF) from August, but due to popular request I have uploaded a version without answers (PDF).
George Lane has created an updated version of his Pegasus training program, which is used to create the questions for the MSO World Championship and the Junior Mental Calculations World Championship. You can download this – and a simulator matching the 2018 MSO paper – from this page.
The winners of the Mental Calculation World Cup were published on this website shortly after the competition, but now the full MCWC results tables and all of the tasks are available on Ralf Laue’s website.
Some reporters from the BBC (the British state media) were present at the Mental Calculation World Cup, to report on the event. They spoke with Ralf, Robert Fountain, some of the other competitors, and a psychologist. The 28-minute radio show can be heard here on the new BBC Sounds service, and will be live on BBC Radio 4 at 21:00 UK time on Monday 2018-Oct-22.
Many of you are familiar with Hectoc – the calculation category invented by Yusnier Viera where you have to combine 6 digits in the correct order to achieve 100 (for example 123456 => 1 + (2+3+4)*(5+6) = 100). The winner of the 2018 German Hectoc championship, Dinah Spring, made a stack of pocket-sized Hectoc practice booklets (photos) to distribute. Contact her at rekenrechnet@gmx.de if you’d like to ask about these. They can be available in English, French, German and Spanish.