International Mathematical Olympiad
From AoPSWiki
The International Mathematical Olympiad is the pinnacle of all high school mathematics competitions and the oldest of all international scientific competitions. Each year, countries from around the world send a team of 6 students to compete in a grueling competition.
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Format of the Competition
The competition takes place over 2 consecutive days. Each day 3 problems are given to the students to work on for 4.5 hours. Following the general format of high school competitions, it does not require calculus or related topics.
Scoring
Scoring on each problem is done on a 0-7 scale (inclusive and integers only). Full credit is only given for complete, correct solutions. Each solution is intended to be in the form of a mathematical proof. Since there are 6 problems, a perfect score is 42 points.
Awards
Medals and honorable mentions are given out.
- Gold - the top 1/12 of individual scores.
- Silver - the next 2/12 of individual scores.
- Bronze - the next 3/12 of individual scores.
- Honorable mention - any student who receives a score of 7 on any one problem but did not receive a medal.
Team Competition
There is no official team competition. Unofficially, however, the scores of each team are compared each year where a team's score is the sum of their individual scores.
History
The IMO started in 1959 as a competition among Eastern European countries. Since then, it has evolved into the premier international competition in mathematics.
See also
- IMO Problems and Solutions, with authors
- Mathematics competition resources
- Math books
- Mathematics scholarships
- Worldwide Online Olympiad Training
