Ramya Ramalingam The mathematical Olympiads aim to test the problem solving ability and ingenuity of students at the high school level (9th to 12th standard). The topics relevant to Olympiads include geometry (including some trigonometry), algebra (including inequalities), combinatorics, and number theory but knowledge of calculus or other higher mathematics is not required. The relevant topics are generally taught in high school. However, most of these topics require a more in-depth understanding than the one fostered at school (in my experience, combinatorics is touched very briefly and number theory is not part of the syllabus at all in India). So a secure, grounded, well-founded knowledge of these topics is an essential pre-requisite for anyone who wants to do well in the Olympiads. I have found that solving problems of the appropriate level is the best way to prepare for any math competition, and this is more so for the Olympiads than for anything else. Solving previous year question papers and problems of similar nature and difficulty is essential and allows you to get a sense of the type of questions asked and how to approach them. However, it is sometimes difficult to find problems of the right level of difficulty (for a given student) and even harder to find their solutions. The following is a list of books that I found useful in my endeavour to prepare for the Olympiads: Level 0 (Elementary) These books can be used by middle school students (4th to 8th grade) to get a jump start on the topics that are building blocks to problem solving techniques. They are, however, not sufficient for high school Olympiads. E-Z Algebra and EZ – Trigonometry by Douglas Downing published by Barrons (The E-Z series) is a set of self-study books that follow an interesting story-line to pique interest in children. Each book starts off with a few trivial chapters but goes on to discuss higher topics that may not even be covered in high school. Each chapter is followed by a problem set, for which the answers (without solutions) are presented at the back. Pre-algebra by Richard Rusczyk, David Patrick, Ravi Boppana (published by Art of Problem Solving) covers all major topics preceding algebra. Competition Math for Middle School by Jason Batterson (published by Art of Problem Solving) has a multitude of extremely well explained examples and challenging problems at the middle school level. Level 1 (Beginners) These books delve into topics that are essential for Olympiads. All of the Art of Problem