International Mathematical Olympiad

The International Mathematical Olympiad is the pinnacle of all high school mathematics competitions. Each year, countries from around the world send a team of 6 students to compete in a grueling competition.

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.

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

External Links

• <url>index.php?f=87 AoPS-MathLinks IMO Forum</url>
• <url>resources.php AoPS-MathLinks Olympiad Resources</url>
• Official IMO Site
• IMO 2007 Vietnam
• IMO 2006 Slovenia