Hai Duong male student won 2 gold medals at the National Math Olympiad

Tran Van Khanh is currently a second-year student majoring in information technology at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology. He was honored as one of the six contestants with outstanding achievements at the closing ceremony of the 2025 National Math Olympiad for Students on April 5.

Khanh won gold medals in both calculus and algebra. He scored 30/30 in calculus, making him the only candidate out of 650 students from 90 universities to achieve a perfect score. This was also the subject in which Khanh won bronze last year.

In algebra, Khanh ranked second in group B (a group of schools that do not specialize in math) with 24.5/30 points.

"With experience from last year, I expected to change the color of the medal this year. But winning two gold medals and being valedictorian is something I never thought of," Khanh said. "This result is partly due to luck."

Khanh was a math major at Nguyen Trai High School for the Gifted in Hai Duong. In 2023, he was admitted directly to the Academy of Posts and Telecommunications Technology thanks to his third prize in the national excellent student competition. Choosing to major in information technology, Khanh thought he still had to study math well because it was a fundamental subject. That's why Khanh decided to participate in the Math Olympiad right from his first year.

To represent the school in the competition, Khanh had to go through two rounds of selection. The first round was for students of all majors. Then, the teachers selected about 15 people in each of the calculus and algebra subjects to compete in the second round. Finally, 5 students in each subject entered the national round.

In addition to the time spent studying for the exam with the team - about two months, Khanh studied on his own to improve his math thinking. The male student searched and selected documents online, combined with finding previous years' exam questions to try solving.

"I don't practice the questions in isolation, but spend time thinking about them after solving them. This habit helps train my thinking, reflexes, and flexibility when facing new problems, so I can see many ways to solve a problem and choose the best way," Khanh shared.

Thanks to the above review method and exam experience from last year, Khanh confidently entered this year's exam.

The male student said he had a small problem when 30 minutes before the algebra exam, the Organizing Committee announced that calculators were not allowed in the exam room, so he was a bit worried.

"Algebra requires a lot of calculation. If you don't use a calculator to check, it will be difficult for candidates to quickly detect mistakes, wasting time and affecting their psychology," Khanh said.

However, this regulation made Khanh more careful and meticulous at every step, finding approaches to present as concisely as possible, so as not to waste time checking again.

With two gold medals, Khanh helped the Academy of Posts and Telecommunications Technology win first place in Group B and be one of the four strongest teams.

Dr. Le Van Ngoc, Head of Mathematics Department, Faculty of Basic Science 1, Academy of Posts and Telecommunications Technology, commented that Khanh is very meticulous, has the ability to research and learn very well and has very deep knowledge of mathematics. The male student is the first student of the school to win 2 gold medals in this competition.

Khanh said that after the exam, he will focus on studying in class to improve his grades and participate in scientific research. Currently, Khanh's average score for the 3 semesters is more than 3.5/4, almost reaching the excellent level (3.6/4).