Here are the rules of the ISMTF Senior Mathematics Competition
Eligibility
Students must be born on or before January 1st 1982. Passports will be checked on arrival.
Questions
Questions will be drawn from the subject matter of the IB Higher Syllabus, the AP syllabus and/or the "A" level syllabus to include all pure mathematics but not mechanic or advanced statistics.
Calculators
Calculators will not be allowed in the competition. Students should not have watches that have calculators.
Teams
School may enter at most 2 teams of 3 persons. Reserves are allowed. Please advise the organiser of any changes in teams as soon as possible after these occur..
Individual competition
Note: these regulations may be subject to some minor changes (in particular with reference to the number of questions). The contest will be held on Saturday morning. The individual competition will consist of 40 to 50 multiple choice questions each with 5 possible answers. The questions will be distributed in sets of 5 questions on a sheet with 10 minutes to answer the set. There will be a warning at the end of 9 minutes, and at the end of 10 minutes, the students will be instructed to stop. The answers will be collected and a further set will be distributed and started. The process will be repeated the requisite number of times. Approximately two hours will be necessary with 2 warm-up trial questions and time for collection and distribution. Each questions will be worth 2 points. Coaches should tell their students that answers will be accepted only in their simplest forms. Tie-breaker questions will decide any ties.
Team competition
The second part of the competition will take place on Saturday afternoon. There will be 21 questions and these will be distributed in groups of 3. The answers are not multiple choice. Fifteen minutes will be allowed for the solution of each set. A warning will be given at the end of 13 minutes of elapsed time. At the end of the time, the team may submit up to three answers. These answers may be submitted in any of the following combinations:
One answer for each question,
2 answers for one question plus one answer for another
3 attempts at one question.
Scoring will be as follows:
Teams that score only one question correctly will receive 10 points, teams scoring two questions will receive 25 points, and teams scoring all three correctly will receive 45 points. Incorrect solutions are ignored, so if any of the three submitted answers is correct the team receives credit.
The overall team score is determined by the sum of the scores from the team event and the three individual scores from the individual event. Any ties in the team competition will be decided firstly on the basis of the number of "45"s scored, then the number of "25"s and then the number of "10"s. If there is still a tie after this procedure, sudden death tie-breaker questions will be used to break the tie.
Prizes
Each contestant will receive a certificate of participation. In addition, the top ten students will be awarded prizes in the individual competition. Team prizes will be awarded to the top three teams. Only one team per school can win a team prize. The awards ceremony is scheduled for Sunday midday.
Sunday Chase
This optional contest of about 20 questions will be held on Sunday morning at school. More details on arrival.
