The Points Curve
Three short lessons on the World Aquatics points table: a cube of a ratio, the table read backwards, and why near the top one percent of time is worth about three percent of points.
For grown-ups, from what CalcQuest teaches children at Spark & Anvil.
Score your own swims or walks
You'll need: A calculator, a published base time or world record for one event, your own times.
- Pick one event and write down its base time (World Aquatics publishes them; for a walk, use a record you look up).
- Each person times their own swim or walk of that distance, twice on different days.
- Work out 1000 × (base ÷ your time)³ for each try.
- Compare each person’s two tries — only your own, never each other’s — and say how big a change in time made the change in points.
The same idea, with the world taken away
If you double a number and then cube it, how many times bigger is the answer than the first number cubed?
Ask it, then let everyone say the answer in their own words. A child's rung on Spark & Anvil ends the same way, with the world gone and the numbers left.
The same idea at every age
- Ages 3–5Bead a Length and 3 more
- Ages 6–8Fives Round the Clock and 3 more
- Ages 9–14The Star and 9 more
- Ages 15–18The Points Curve and 3 more
Your child will meet this idea again at every age. The tools and courses here are the part for you.