Recently CNN News on-lines reported the following:
Rural Chinese student sparks awe and suspicion after
beating math elites in global contest (1/2)
Joyce Jiang, CNN
Mon, July 8, 2024 at 2:24 a.m. PDT·6 min read
A fashion major from a vocational high school in rural China has amazed the nation by outshining elite students in a global math contest – but the teenager’s underdog story has now been mired by controversy.
Jiang Ping, born in a poor village in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, ranked 12th out of 802 shortlisted competitors – mostly from prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Oxford, and MIT – in first-round results released on June 13 by DAMO Academy, the organizer of the Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition.
Launched in 2018 by Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, the free online contest is open to math enthusiasts worldwide, though Chinese math majors typically dominate the top places. This year’s top 85 finishers will win prizes from $2,000 to $30,000.
Jiang’s high placement – in the first of the contest’s two rounds – was a remarkable achievement for a student from one of the country’s vocational schools, which suffer deep-seated social prejudices and whose graduates occupy the lowest rungs of China’s educational hierarchy.
Her success initially garnered nationwide acclaim, with multiple Chinese state media outlets jumping on the story and a deluge of online commentary buoyed by seeing a vocational student do so well in an international math competition.
But doubts about the 17-year-old’s math skills have gained momentum online since the end of last month, ahead of the release next month of results from the much more challenging second round. The organizing committee has yet to address them.
Suspicions cast
Jiang’s gift for math came to the fore in junior high, where
her scores far outstripped those of her peers, state-run news agency Xinhua
reported. She was later trained by math teacher Wang Runqiu at Lianshu
Secondary Vocational School, where she studies fashion design.
Wang, a three-time finalist in the contest, helped Jiang to teach herself advanced math over the past two years, according to Xinhua.
Since Jiang’s top-20 finish in the first round was announced, a related hashtag topped searches on X-like platform Weibo, amassing more than 650 million views so far. In her hometown, her image beamed from television screens at local malls.
Jiang finished the final round on June 22, and the results will be released in August.
However, just a day after the final, Richard Xu from Harvard Business School, who placed 190th in the first round, announced on China’s Quora-type site Zhihu that he, along with 38 other contestants, had filed a joint letter to the organizing committee asking for an independent investigation into Jiang and Wang’s answer sheets from the qualifying round.
The letter cites “evidence” of alleged fraud, including a theory of “collaborative cheating” headed by Wang, who came 125th.
Four days before the final round, Yin Wotao, a member of the organizing committee, had defended Jiang in a soon-deleted response to a skeptic on X.
“Some math amateurs have indeed placed well in the qualifying rounds in past years,” given the moderate difficulty and generous 48-hour time limit, Yin argued.
Blocked from accessing Yin’s short-lived comments by Chinese internet restrictions, users posted on the Lianshui county government’s website, demanding an official investigation into Jiang and Wang.
On June 27, the local government confirmed what until that point had been an online rumor that Jiang scored only 83 out of 150 in a school math exam held after the qualifying round. The next day, it provided a formulaic response to further related queries, saying “the investigation is underway.”
Soon after, all the posts relating to Jiang were taken down and there’s been no update since.
In response to CNN’s inquiries on June 28, organizing committee member Yin declined to comment without the green light from DAMO Academy, his employer.
CNN has reached out to the academy for comment and could not reach Jiang and her teacher Wang.
(to be continued)
Translation
中國農村一所職業高中的時尚專業學生在全球數學競賽中超越精英學生，震驚全國，但這位弱勢年青人的故事現在陷入了爭議。
阿里巴巴全球數學競賽主辦單位的主辦單位達摩院 於6月13日公佈首輪成績，出生於中國東部江蘇省的一個貧困村莊的 Jiang Ping 在802名入圍選手中排名第12位，競賽選手大多來自哈佛、牛津、麻省理工等著名學府。
這項免費線上競賽由中國電子商務巨頭阿里巴巴於 2018 年推出，向全球數學愛好者開放，但中國數學專業畢業者通常佔據前列位置。今年的前 85 名選手將贏得 2,000 至 30,000 美元的獎金。
Jing 在兩輪比賽的第一輪比賽中獲得高分，對於來自中國一所職業學校的學生來說是一項了不起的成就，這些學校遭受根深蒂固的社會偏見，其畢業生處於中國教育體系的最底層。
她的成功最初贏得了全國性的讚譽，多家中國官方媒體都對這個故事進行了報道，看到一名職業學生在國際數學競賽中取得如此出色的成績，也引發了大量網上評論。
但自上月底以來，在更具挑戰性的第二輪比賽結果將於下個月發布之前，網路上對這位 17 歲選手數學技能的質疑聲不斷升溫。組委會尚未對應這些質疑。
根據官方通訊社新華社報道，Jiang 的數學天賦在國中時就凸顯出來，她的成績遠遠超過了同齡人。後來，她在 Lianshu 職業中學裡學習服裝設計, 並接受數學老師 Wang Runqiu 的培訓，。
據新華社報道，Wang 曾三度是比賽決賽入圍者，在過去的兩年裡幫助 Jiang 自學高等數學。
自從 Jiang 在第一輪比賽中進入前20名的消息公佈以來，一個相關的標籤在類似 X 的微博平台上搜尋量名列最高，迄今為止的瀏覽量已超過 6.5 億次。在她的家鄉，她的圖像出現在當地商場的電視螢幕上。
Jiang 於6月22日完成了最後一輪比賽，成績將於8月公佈。
然而，就在決賽後一天，首輪排名第190位的哈佛商學院 Richard Xu 在中國的一個叫“知乎” (Zhihu) 的問答網站上宣布，他與其他38名參賽者已向組委會提交了一封聯名信要求對 Jiang 、Wang 預選賽答案卷進行獨立調查。
這封信引用了涉嫌詐欺的 “證據” ， 其中包括以排名第125位的 wang 先生為首的 “協同作弊” 理論。
在決賽前四天，委員會成員 Yin Wotao 在一篇針對《X》懷疑論者的回應中為 Jiang 辯護，但該回應很快被刪除。
Yin 認為，因為適中的難度和充裕的 48 小時時間限制，「過去幾年，一些數學業餘愛好者確實在資格賽中取得了不錯的成績」。
6月27日，當地政府證實了網路上流傳的謠言，Jiang 在預選賽後舉行的學校數學考試中只得到了83分（滿分150分）。第二天，當地政府對進一步的相關詢問做出了公式化的回應，聲稱「調查正在進行中」。
不久之後，所有與 Jiang 有關的貼文都被刪除，此後再也沒有任何更新。
6月28日，委員會成員Yin 在回應 CNN 詢問時，以沒有獲得其雇主達摩院 批准, 拒絕發表評論。
CNN 已聯繫該學院尋求評論，亦無法聯繫到 Jiang 和她的
Wang 老師 。
（待續）
Note:
Zhihu (Chinese: 知乎; pinyin: Zhīhū) is a
Quora-type question and answer site and news aggregator. Originally based in
Chengdu and with creators from Sichuan, China, the website launched on January
26, 2011. The number of registered users on Zhihu exceeded 10 million by the
end of 2013, and reached 17 million as of May 2015, with 250 million monthly
page views. (Wikipedia)
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