The Mathematical Olympiad at school

The Mathematical Olympiad offers students the unique opportunity to share their enthusiasm for mathematics with young people from all over Switzerland. They have the chance to qualify for further rounds and to deepen their knowledge and skills at workshops and in camps. The twelve best are invited to represent Switzerland at the International Mathematical Olympiad and the Central European Mathematical Olympiad, and the four best female participants form the Swiss team for the European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad. To participate, students need little prior mathematical knowledge. An interest in logical puzzles and a certain flair for mathematical questions are the only things they need.

The First Round

The First Round of the Olympiad takes place from 1 to 30 September on OlyPortal (Instructions), consisting of a 75-minute test that can easily be integrated into a double lesson. There are two categories: Junior Level for grades 7 to 9 and Senior Level for grades 10 to 13. The best students from both categories qualify for the Second Round. Students can take the exam individually on our website. We take care of the correction, evaluation and subsequent contact with the participants. The effort for the school and teachers thus remains minimal.

Implementation of the Contest

Individual participation of individual pupils

Inform talented students about the competition. They can register independently on OlyPortal and take the exam online.

Online participation with the whole class or smaller groups

You can sign up on OlyPortal as a teacher and create an online link for your class to take the exam together. More detailed instructions can be found here. As the exam is 75 minutes long, please make sure you have a double period free for the students to spend on the exam.

Rules

If the exam is held at school, it should take place in a supervised, exam-appropriate environment. Students do not all have to write the exams at the same time and any aids (calculators, notes, internet, etc) are allowed. However, it is essential that all students complete the tasks on their own.

Participants should not solicit the use of large language models or other assistance enabled by artificial intelligence. We will not police the usage of such tools but we stress that subsequent exams will take place under standard exam conditions (no calculators or access to the internet) and there is no point breaking the rules as it will not help participants perform better at later stages. The intention of having an "open-book" first round is so that prerequisite knowledge and the time it takes to do rudimentary calculations are not a barrier to entry and so that participants can look up information they might need, not so that they ask a machine to think critically on their behalf.

Results

Participants will receive their results at the beginning of October. If the competition was conducted in class, you will also receive all the results of your students by e-mail.

The Second Round

The best students qualify for the second round. From here on, we contact the participants directly and teachers have no further obligations. The short tasks of the First Round are very different from the longer tasks of the other rounds of the Mathematical Olympiad. Therefore, we want to give talented and motivated students the chance to participate in the Second Round if they did not qualify directly. If a teacher vouched for the talent and motivation of the students in question, they can participate in the preparation meetings and take the Second Round examination. You will receive more information about this after the end of the first round.

Further Offers

Science Olympiads

The Mathematical Olympiad is part of the Association Science Olympiad. They include Olympiads in astronomy, biology, chemistry, geography, informatics, linguistics, philosophy, physics, robotics and economics. Learn more.

Other Mathematical Competitions

Numerous other competitions organised by the Junior Euler Society of the University of Zürich.

Other Courses and Programs