A total of 24 schools entered the final in the group division while 138 students made it to the last round of the individual division.

After intense competition, Yuen Long Merchants Association Secondary School took the championship in the group divi sion, while Chin-lung won the individual title.

'It's my first time joining an open competition and I didn't think I could win,' Chin-lung said.

'The questions were actually quite tough. If I had more time, I could have finished them all. But I think winning is not that important because you get your satisfaction from solving the problems, not from getting the trophy.'

The competition, in its 13th year, was organised by the Hong Kong Joint School Mathematics Society, a student organisation which aims to promote an interest in mathematics and strengthen ties among students from different schools.

This year, the competition was sponsored by Joint Publishing and Swire Coca-Cola HK.

'Mathematics is very important to the modern world and it is one of the best methods to train our minds to think logically and systematically,' said the society's chairman, Edward Leung Chun- pong, a sixth form science student from Ying Wa School.

'We hope the competition will raise the participants' interest in mathematics and enhance their problem-solving skills.'

The chief organiser of the contest was Chung Shiu-chun, a sixth former from Ying Wa School. The competition aimed to give students an opportunity to exchange ideas and work together, he said.

Shiu-chun said they started promoting the competition last November by organising a poster design contest, and the preliminary competition was held in April.

'The average standard of the participants was very high this year,' he said.