Event Details and Pre-Registration Guidelines
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Pre-registration will be available through Monday, April 7, 2008. (However non-registered students may still participate)
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In order to pre-register, please provide the following information in an email to Margie at mtealsda@uccs.edu : School name; School mailing address; Student(s) name(s); Grade of each student; Teacher/Mentor name; Teacher/Mentor phone number; Teacher/Mentor email address. -
CMO is an individual test; middle and high school students will compete against one another.
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CMO is an essay-type test consisting of (5) problems and (4) hours to complete.
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Students are allowed to bring: calculators, compasses and/or straight edge rulers.
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UCCS will provide: graphing paper, pencils and scratch paper.
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Students will be given folders which will include: a campus map, scratch paper, pencil, and an Awards Ceremony announcement.
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Schools must have a designated meeting location and time for participants leaving before 1 p.m. and for students being picked up by parents. Please note: students will not be tested by schools; students are assigned to testing rooms, randomly.
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Registration/Check-in (8:00 a.m.) and Check-Out (after student completes test) is required in the University Center, Gymnasium – this will be a central meeting location for questions, emergencies, etc.
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Parking is open in all lots. Students may be dropped off in front of Science Building; buses may park in lots 4-5. Do not park in loading zones, or handicap spaces.
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School Chaperones need to be registered by school contact. Please submit first & last name, email, and school address upon student pre-registration.
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If you have any questions, please contact Margie Teals-Davis, (719) 262-4552, mtealsda@uccs.edu .
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WHAT IS COLORADO MATH OLYMPIAD?
There are many types of mathematical competitions throughout the world. Some expect participants to merely state answers, others are multiple choice competitions. Some competitions are oral, and completed in a matter of a couple of hours. Others go on for a week or weeks. Over the past 100 years throughout the world the word "Olympiad " came to mean the particular type of competition where complete essays are expected for every problem and an adequate time is offered to participants.
The First Colorado Springs Mathematical Olympiad took place on April 27, 1984. The COLORADO MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIAD is the largest essay-type mathematical competition in the United States, with 600 to 1,000 participants competing annually for prizes, such as: medals, computer software, scholarships, calculators, books, memorabilia, etc. All prizes are made possible by our various sponsors (see sponsor list)
Participants are offered 5 problems and given 4 hours to solve them. Problems of great difficulty, and arranged them from the easiest problem to the most difficult problem. This is an individual competition, and all work must be shown for credit. Our Olympiad is genuinely and principally an essay-type competition. We generously reward originally and creativity. Our goal is to allow every student the opportunity to participate in the Olympiad. We offer only individual competition and put no restrictions on the number of participants from a school. Colorado Springs District 11 distributes an information letter to all school districts twice a year. The information sheet includes dates, times, protocol and instructions for participation.
We try to bring the Olympiad problems closer to "real" mathematics: many problems require construction of examples (rather than just analytical reasoning), some comprised a sequence of problems increasing in difficulty, leading to generalizations, and deeper results. These problems are structured to demonstrate ways in which mathematical research worked.
We use the least standard, the most interesting, decisively unknown to participants, problems. We do not have a large enough organization to consider an alternative of offering the competition separately for every grade. Thus, we offer the same problems to everyone who comes, from junior high school students to seniors. This approach made finding of acceptable problems much more difficult, but positively improved the quality of the problems. We create problems that require, for their solutions, a minimal amount of knowledge and a great deal of creativity, originality, and analytical thinking. To review problems from past Olympiads, see links below. Each solution is evaluated by at least two judges independently, and all disagreements are discussed by many, if not all, 12 to 21 judges. This enjoyable but hard job takes the judges usually a weekend. At the end we learn the names of students to whom we awarded prizes (judges evaluate essays without knowing the names of their authors). A week later the AWARDS CEREMONY offers a review of solutions, a lecture on mathematics, comments by dignitaries and legislators, presentation of awards, and a reception. Thus, we hope that the Award Ceremony would be of great interest to all participants, their parents, and teachers.
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UCCS
