Olimpiada Iberoamericana de Matemáticas

The Olimpiada Iberoamericana de Matemáticas is a mathematics competition for the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries North America, South America, Central America, the Caribbean and the Iberian Peninsula. It is targeted at students who are under 18 years of age before the 31st of December of the year immediately before the celebration of the Olympiad. Each year, countries from "Iberoamérica" send a team of 4 students to compete in a lite version of the IMO.

Format of the Competition

Similar to the IMO, 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, though proofs using higher mathematics are accepted.

Scoring

Scoring on each problem is done on a 0-10 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 60 points.

Awards

Similar to the IMO, Medals and honorable mentions are given out. Sometimes, other prizes and awards are given to contestants too.

  • 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 10 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.

Differences from the IMO

Only countries from Iberoamérica are allowed to participate. Countries send teams of 4 instead of 6 Points for each problem are on a scale of 0-10 instead of 0-7. Problems are similar to those from the IMO but slightly easier.

History

In 1985 the Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura, launched the First Olimpiada Iberoamericana de Matemática (OIM), in Colombia with participation from 10 countries. The Olimpiada Iberoamericana de Matemática happens annually on the month of September.

The OIM is hosted by the selected country with the support and sponsorship of national and international organizations, entities or people who desire to collaborate on these events and by authorized by the Olympic Committee of the specific host organization for that year.

Problem Selection

Like the IMO, each year nearly every country proposes several problems in consideration for the Olimpiada Iberoamericana de Matemática spread out across the topics of Algebra, Combinatorics, Geometry, and Number Theory. The six problems are then chosen out of these.

See also