Math Olympiad Gold in Grade 3: Aarav's Perfect 40/40 at the IMO

Away from the football field, Aarav found another game he loved just as much, the kind you play with a pencil and a tricky math problem.

In Grade 3, that love turned into something remarkable. At the Science Olympiad Foundation's International Mathematics Olympiad, Aarav scored a perfect 40 out of 40 in the first level, ranking first in his school, region, and zone and earning a Gold Medal of Distinction. He then cleared the tougher second level too, finishing with an International Rank of 152. His Cuemath tutor, Farhana Liyakat, guided him there through weekly online math tutoring.

A Math Olympiad is not a test of the school syllabus. Its questions reward logical reasoning and the ability to apply an idea to an unfamiliar problem, the kind of thinking that has to be built on purpose, especially for a young child who is years away from some of the topics these problems hint at. Doing well is less about knowing more and more about thinking better.

That is where Farhana Liyakat came in. With her, math became something Aarav looked forward to rather than a set of sums to finish. In their sessions they worked through Olympiad practice sheets, and her approach was to hold back the answer: when he got stuck, she gave a single clue or pointed the direction, and he would catch his own mistake, understand it, and carry on. Those small moments, one nudge and then the click of understanding, added up. His confidence grew alongside his concepts, until an Olympiad paper was really just another set of interesting problems to take apart.

The Science Olympiad Foundation runs the International Mathematics Olympiad for students from Classes 1 to 12, testing mathematical reasoning and logical ability rather than textbook recall. Only the top five percent of each class advance from the first level to the second, and Aarav cleared both. He is not the only young Cuemath student to shine at this kind of competition, another Grade 3 student swept a season of math contests.

Aarav is eight, and he already reasons through problems that sit well beyond his grade, not because he has memorized more, but because he has learned to think. The football will always be waiting after class. What Cuemath has added is a second field he loves just as much, one where a hard problem is a challenge to enjoy rather than avoid. That is what being MathFit looks like, genuine curiosity, real reasoning, and the confidence to take on a problem no one has shown you how to solve. The earlier a child builds that, the further it carries.