Jangping Advances to Finals of Global Math Competition
"Disqualified from Award for Violating Rule Prohibiting Discussion with Others"
Jang Ping (17), a vocational high school student who made headlines for advancing to the finals of a global math competition held in China, was later found to have violated the competition rules.
On the 3rd, the organizing committee of the Alibaba Global Math Competition in China announced the winners: 5 gold, 10 silver, 20 bronze, and 51 excellence awards. The committee stated, "Wang Mo, a teacher at Lianshui Secondary Vocational School in Jiangsu Province, and his student who advanced to the finals attracted social attention, but based on the scoring results, they did not receive any awards." They added, "It was revealed that Wang violated the 'no discussion with others' rule during the preliminaries by assisting his student."
Earlier, in June, Jang Ping scored 93 points in the preliminaries of the global math competition hosted by China's IT giant Alibaba, advancing to the finals. Jang Ping, a student at Lianshui Secondary Vocational School, ranked 12th among 801 finalists. The top 30 finalists included graduates from prestigious universities such as MIT in the United States, and Peking University and Tsinghua University in China, which drew significant attention to Jang Ping's story.
At the time, China's state-run Global Times reported on Jang Ping's advancement to the finals, stating, "Vocational high schools and colleges in China often bear the stigma of being places for 'failed students,' but in recent days, many Chinese netizens have been shocked by her math talent and have shown support." It was known that Jang Ping had excellent math skills in middle school but entered a vocational school due to low high school entrance exam scores.
However, after the preliminary results were released, some netizens criticized the competition's management as lax and even petitioned for a regrading. The preliminaries were conducted online over 48 hours in an open-book format, allowing access to both online and offline materials and the use of computer programs according to the rules. Other forms of cheating, such as discussing with others, were prohibited, but there was no on-site supervision. This structure made it difficult to detect if experts assisted or if answers were written by proxies. After Jang Ping's misconduct was revealed, local netizens expressed various reactions such as "the fall of a genius girl," "the teacher's greed ruined the student's future," and "the teacher should be punished."
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