My name is Aarushi Rath and I have successfully completed my IGCSE CIM and Additional Mathematics qualifications. Mathematics is one of my favourite subjects and I’ve always been enthusiastic about it. Inevitably, I do feel a little tense about HL Maths; however, my excitement undoubtedly triumphs my anxiety as I’m eager to broaden my knowledge and take new risks, such as writing IAs.

Concerning the spectrum, I can’t say I’m on either side. Sometimes, I rather have someone teach it to me as it allows me to develop this additional complexity while assisting in making my understanding more sophisticated and accurate. However, I see great value in solving problems myself as it allows me to think about math through an unbiased perspective. Moreover, it allows me to solve problems not through memorised formulas, but rather through a more organic way. When I get stuck, I like to use different methods of solving so I can easily identify where I go wrong, breaking down/simplifying the problem also helps.

My biggest strengths are self-discipline and diligence, I feel that I’m aware of the amount of effort I need to put in to succeed and feel happy while remaining productive in the long-term. However, I want to focus on being a critical thinker as I am aware that problems and concepts will have an undertone of complexity and thus, I have to ensure I critically think through difficult problems so I can succeed in solving them while still obtaining sufficient learning.