International Mathematical Olympiad selection process

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This article describes the selection process, by country, for entrance into the International Mathematical Olympiad.

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is an annual mathematical olympiad for high school students.

Each year, each participating countries sends at most 6 students under the age of 20 to compete. The exact selection process varies between countries, but typically involves several rounds of contests, each progressively more difficult and reduces the number of candidates until the final 6 are chosen.

Additionally, many countries run training camps for IMO potentials. The goal is to improve the overall country's performance and use to help select the team members.

Contents

[edit] IMO Selection process by country

[edit] Argentina

In Argentina, the Olimpíada Matemática Argentina is organized each year by Fundación Olimpíada Matemática Argentina. All students that took and passed the National Finals (fifth and last round of the competition) exams, usually held in November; and were born before July 1st 21 years ago, are allowed to take two new written tests to be selected for IMO, usually in April. From the results of that tests, six titular students and five substitutes are selected to represent Argentina at the International Mathematical Olympiad. The Argentinian team for IMO 2006 was: Julián Martín Eisenchlos, Ignacio Agustín Rossi, Roberto Aníbal Morales, Fernando Martín Vidal and Pablo Nicolás Zimmermann. Leader: Patricia Fauring. Deputy Leader: Flora Gutiérrez. The Argentinian team got two Silver Medals, two Bronze Medals and one Honorable Mention at the last competition, held in Slovenia.

[edit] Australia

In Australia, selection into the IMO team is determined by the Australian Mathematics Trust and is based on the results from four exams:

The Australian Mathematics Olympiad (AMO) is held annually in the second week of February. It is composed of two four-hour papers held over two consecutive days. There are four questions in each exam for a total of eight questions. Entry is by invitation only with approximately 100 candidates per year.

A month after the AMO, the Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad is held (APMO) and the top 25 from the AMO are invited to sit the exam. It is a four and a half hour exam with five questions.

The top 12 students from the AMO and APMO (along with another 12 or so junior students) are then invited to a ten day camp held in Sydney in the April school holidays. During this camp, two four-and-a-half hour selection exams are held, each with four questions. The top six candidates along with a reserve are then announced as part of the team based on their results in the four exams.

The 2006 team consists of Charles Li, Vinoth Nandakumar, Matthew Ng, Vinh Pham, Konrad Pilch and Graham White, with Anthony Morris as reserve.

[edit] Belgium

The team is bilingual. The Dutch-speaking community selects three participants during the Vlaamse Wiskunde Olympiade. The French-speaking community selects their three participants through the Olympiade Mathématique Belge and additional tests at training weekends.

[edit] Canada

High school students must first write the Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge, which takes place around November. Should they score high enough in the COMC, they will be invited to write the Canadian Mathematics Olympiad (CMO), Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad (APMO), and unofficially write the USAMO.

The students with the top scores (conditions permitting) will make the Canadian team and travel to the location of the IMO in that year. Although the team is made up of students from all over Canada, Toronto and its suburbs have produced the most people for the team due to its high population density. The Canadian Mathematical Society is the organization which selects team leaders and members for the IMO team.

[edit] China

In mainland China, highschool students have the annual National Highschool Mathematics Competitions, held on the second Sunday of October. A few competitors of each province with best scores, usually the top 3 to 5, will be invited to participate in the China Mathematics Olympiads. Approximately the top 20 competitors of CMO will have a training campus; and then, the 6 students with top scores will form the Chinese team.

[edit] Colombia

In Colombia the selection and preparation of students for math competitions is organized by Olimpiadas Colombianas de Matemáticas. The process begins with the regional competitions which are held in October and November. The best students of these competitions are invited to the January Training Session. In early March the National Competition or Olimpiada Colombiana de Matemáticas begins. It consists of a sequence of four examinations: the clasificatoria, the selectiva, the semifinal and the ronda final. The latter contains a (prior) training session and then two days of IMO-style papers.

Every Colombian high school student can take part in the first "classifying" examination but afterwards students are invited to compete according to their results on the previous examination. The three best students of the three different high school levels of the final round examination are the winners of the Colombian Math Olympiad. Although in principle students of the lower levels may be selected to go to the IMO, it generally takes many years before they can compete with students of the highest level or nivel superior. After the National Competition the twenty best students of each level are invited to the June Training Session where students undergo the IMO selection process.

[edit] Cyprus

Main article: High School (Lyceum) Maths Competitions in Cyprus.

In Cyprus Four provincial competitions and a National (Pancyprian) competition are held every year. During this procedure 30 students are selected and Four Team Selection Tests are held to determine who will be the the six member of national team for IMO

[edit] Czech Republic

After successfully completing the school and regional rounds, roughly 50 best participants are invited to the national round, where 10 best students are selected to participate in a week-long selection campus. Each day they solve a set of 3-4 problems, taken mainly from the past national olympiads of various countries. On the last day they have to find the answers (this time in form of a number) to rather large set of shorter problems under significant time-pressure. After that the team is selected and before the actual IMO, it competes in traditional Czech-Slovak-Polish Mathematical Contest where the participants can practise their skill under almost identical conditions to IMO.

[edit] Denmark

In Denmark a national contest open to all high school students is held every year called "Georg Mohr-Konkurrencen" (the Georg Mohr contest) named after a Danish mathematician. The top 20 of this contest are then invited to another contest where the final team is selected.

[edit] France

The Association Animath prepares and selects the French IMO team. Students who succeed at a preselection test can get from Animath a year-long training, after which the team is selected by an IMO-like test.

[edit] Germany

IMO team selection in Germany is based on the main national mathematical competitions: The Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik (BWM, the former west German olympiad), the Deutsche Mathematik-Olympiade (DeMO, the former east German olympiad), and Jugend forscht (a research competition). Students successful in any of these competitions (e. g. a prize in the second round of the BWM) write two 3-hour exams at their schools, and the 16 best scorers of these exams are invited to a training program consisting of five seminars, where lectures are given and seven team selection tests are written - 4-hour exams determining the actual IMO contestants (additional tests are possible if the team is not uniquely determined after the seven exams).

[edit] Greece

  • Θαλής (Thalis) - first round
  • Ευκλείδης (Euklidis) - second round
  • Αρχιμήδης (Archimidis) - third round

[edit] Hong Kong

Hong Kong first joined IMO in 1988.

In Hong Kong, the International Mathematical Olympiad Preliminary Selection Contest is held every year. Around 60 students are selected to receive further training, after three phases of which six students will be selected as the Hong Kong team members, and six will be selected as reserve members. The further training is also known as phase four training.

[edit] India

In India, the Indian National Mathematics Olympiad (or INMO) is held every year. Students qualifying this examination get to attend the IMO Training Camp where further selection tests are used to identify the top six students who will represent the country.

Further information: IMOTC.

[edit] Indonesia

In Indonesia, National Mathematical Olympiad is held as a part of National Science Olympiad (Olimpiade Sains Nasional), and have been held annually since 2002. Students who pass the province level test will be eligible to participate in the National Mathematical Olympiad and about 30 students are chosen to get into 1st training camp. About half of them will go to 2nd traning camp and participate in APMO. At the end, 6 students are selected to represent the country. The selection depends on the results of regular test, IMO mock test and APMO.

[edit] Ireland

In Ireland, the top scorers in the Junior Certificate (a state exam taken around the age of 15-16) are invited by the various universities to take part in the Irish Mathematical Olympiad. The IrMO is held simultaneously in May in each of these universities. The test consists of two three hour papers, each containing five questions, run on the same day. The top six students are selected for the national team.

[edit] Italy

In Italy, the Mathematical Olympiad is held every year; the full selection process is made up of four stages:

  • the so-called Archimedean games, held as a multiple choice test in all participating high schools in November
  • the regional stage, held as a mixed test (multiple choice, numerical answers and proof-writing) in ca. 100 sites in February
  • the national stage, held in Cesenatico at the beginning of May, composed of six problems requiring a full proof.
  • the team selection test, held in Pisa at the end of May after a five-days stage, composed of two sessions each containing three problems requiring a full proof.

[edit] Japan

In Japan, Japan Mathematical Olympiad(JMO) is held every year. JMO has two rounds: the first one in January and the second one in February. The best 20 scorers in JMO are invited to the spring training camp in March. The top six students in several tests at this camp are selected for the national team.

[edit] Latvia

In Latvia a national contest open to all high school students takes place each year. The best participants of regional contests are allowed to participate in the national olympiad held in Riga. The top students are further tested to select the national team.

[edit] Malaysia

The first selection round is based on the Olimpiad Matematik Kebangsaan, OMK (National Mathematical Olympiad) and around 30 candidates are selected to join two or three training camps. The final six candidates are selected from the results of several other tests and exams (including the APMO) in these training camps.

[edit] Mexico

The selecting process in Mexico has 3 stages and is organized by the Mexican Matematical Olimpiad. At first stage, each of the 31 states and the Distrito Federal select a team of up to students (10 in the case of the Distrito Federal) which will representate the state in the national contest. The contest is hold once at year, in the month of November. According to the results of this contest, at least 16 students are selected, who will continue to the second stage of te selecting process, the national trainigs, which are hold from November to April in which the group of 16 students gets reduced to approximately 10. In May the third stage of the contest is hold, in which the six students that will represent Mexico in the next IMO. In similar process the teams for the Centroamerican and Caribean Mathematical Olimpiad (OMCC) and Iberoamerican Mathematical Olimpiad (OIM) are selected. In March the test for the APMO is solved.

[edit] Netherlands

In the Netherlands the selecting process consists of three rounds.

  • The first round takes place on high schools. It contains 8 multiple-choice questions, and 4 open questions.
  • The second round takes place at the Eindhoven University of Technology. It contains 5 open questions.
  • Then there is a training to select the students who will go to the IMO.

[edit] New Zealand

The first selection is based on the September Problems, where the top 24 students are selected and invited to a residential one week training camp. At the end of the camp, approximately 12 students are selected as a squad. The squad receives regular assignments to complete every few weeks leading up to the APMO. The final six candidates plus one reserve are later selected based on results of these assignments and the APMO (Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad).

[edit] Portugal

In Portugal, there are four selection steps. The three first are the exams of the Portuguese Mathematics Olympiad and the last is composed of several exams made by Projecto Delfos, who also prepares the students for international competitions.

[edit] Romania

In Romania those that enter the Romanian National Team on Mathematical Olympiad are selected from four rounds: School, City, County and National. In the case of Bucharest, being some 5 times larger than the largest county, as well as having larger schools, the rounds are: school, sector (a borough, roughly), city and national. From the first two rounds the advancing pupils are chosen using a minium grade threshold (usually 8.00/10.00). From the city/county round advance the top five (fewer in certain cases), with a playoff round organised if necessary. The national round offers fifteen medals (five of each colour). A team (plus reserve) is selected from the medal winners, usually following a playoff round.

[edit] South Africa

In South Africa those who would be members of the team must pass through a nation-wide talent search by correspondence, after which the top fifty or so will be selected for a camp at Stellenbosch University. After that they must come in the top fifteen/sixteen in some monthly problems sent out by the University of Cape Town in order to go to a final selection camp at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. A final training camp takes place at the University of Cape Town just before the IMO. The Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad is used informally as a test, along with an IMO selection test written at the schools of the top fifteen in the event of indecision.

[edit] Spain

In Spain there are three rounds. The first one is held in each university district. There are two written tests, in which eight problems are to be solved. The first three participants in each district go to the national round. This one also consists of two written tests, four and half hours long each, with a total of six problems. The top six scorers go onto the International Olympiad.

[edit] Sweden

In Sweden, a mathematics contest called "Skolornas Matematiktävling" is held every autumn. Those who qualify to the finale are invited to participate in a correspondence course in problem solving as well as the Nordic Mathematics Contest. From the combined results of the qualification round, the correspondence course and the finale and NMC, the six highest achievers of the Swedish finalists are invited to join the swedish IMO team.

[edit] Taiwan

In Taiwan, the selection process consists of three sessions, starting from April to the mid of May. Students who rank among the top 25 in the APMO can participate the first session. During each session students will be tested by six IMO-style problems, and top six students will be selected as the members of the Taiwanese IMO team. The training sessions will be held during May and June.

[edit] United Kingdom

In the UK, the number of those that enter the British Mathematical Olympiad is reduced to around 20. These then have a 'training session' that is held in Trinity College, Cambridge. A squad team (plus reserve) of around nine is selected from examinations during these sessions and a final team is selected after a further training session held at Oundle School.

[edit] United States

In the United States, the team is selected through the American Mathematics Competitions, which are open to all high school students. Final determinations for team members are based largely on the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad and an IMO-style Team Selection Test.

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