We were hoping that IMC could return to
American University
in Bulgaria in Blagoevgrad and it could be held in the
traditional way. But, due to the uncertaninity in the pandemic
situation and the various travel restrictions and quarantine
regulations, the Organizers decided to hold the upcoming IMC
on-line.
We hope that we can meet in person next year
so that next year's competition in 2022 will a residential
competition and a condition of participation is that all
participating students stay in the Hall of Residence provided
by the organisers.
Participants
Every participating university enters several
Students and one or more Team Leaders. Individual students
without a Team Leader are welcome.
The competition is planned for students
completing their first, second, third or fourth year of
university education with a maximum age of participants being 23
years of age at the time of the competition, although exceptions
can be made. There is no minimum age limit.
Each Team Leader is expected to hold an
academic position in a Faculty of the Institution that they
represent. The Team Leaders have to organize invigilating the
students' work and ensure that their work is fair.
All Team Leaders are
expected to participate in evaluating the student's
scripts.
Subjects of the contest
Problems are from the fields of Algebra,
Analysis (Real and Complex), Geometry and Combinatorics. The
working language is English.
Selection of the Problems
The problems are chosen by the International Problem Selection
Committee from those received in advance by the President of the
Jury, Professor John Jayne.
Evaluation
The students' work is evaluated by Team Leaders and other
Professors and Assistant Professors using criteria provided by
the Jury.
Teams Contest
Although this is an individual event, the
Universities traditionally divide their participants into groups
of four each. The number of students in the teams is, however,
not fixed. Each Team's result will be computed as the sum of the
three best students and the average of the team.
IMC Ethics Committee
The Ethics Committee watches and guides he
participants and help them keep fair and honest. The chairman of
the Committee is
Ivan the Confessor.
The Closing Ceremony starts on 7 August,
14:00 UTC.
Please check your time zone for your local time.
Contest Days
The two contest days are 3 and 4 August.
On each day, there will be 4 problems for 4
hours each day. The students must write their solutions on A4
or US letter papers. Only the standard drawing tools (pens,
straightedges etc.) and printed dictionaries are
allowed. Using any electronic tool or printed material is not
allowed. The scripts should not contain any text, name or mark
from which the student can be identified. The language of the
contest is English; solutions written in other languages will
not be evaluated.
The teams are free to choose when to start
the exam, but all members of the team should start at the same
time, with downloading and printing the problems. The problems
will be accessible from 0:00 UTC; all downloads will be
logged.
We will organize two Virtual Contest Halls
for teamless students. You have to choose between these
possibilities. Warning! the starting time in
the Asian Hall has changed.
In the Asian Hall we will start the
contest at 6:00 UTC and finish at 10:00 UTC. For
example, this is 13:00 to 17:00 in Hanoi and Novosibirsk
and 12:00 to 16:00 in Bangladesh.
In the Oceanian Hall we start at 14:00
UTC and finish at 18:00 UTC. This is 9:00 to 13:00
in Mexico City and 11:00 to 15:00 in Rio de
Janeiro.
The links to the Contest Halls will be
sent in e-mail.
Invigilation
The Team Leaders
have to organize the invigilation of all their students
and ensure that their work is fair. Students who are not
invigilated will be removed from the
results.
If personal invigilation is not possible,
the team leader watches the students by video calls like Zoom,
Google Meet, Skype etc. In that case the students have to set
up a webcamera that captures the place. The video must show
the student and his desk. No computer screen is allowed in
front of the students and the students should not wear ear-
and headphones. (See the pictures below.)
If you are a teamless student, you have to set up a webcamera
yourself that captures you and your desk. It is allowed to use
only one camera if there are more students in the same room. By
15 minutes before start, you have to connect the video, download
and print the problems. The video link will be sent you by
e-mail.
Preparing and uploading solutions
At the end of the exam, each student has to produce
5 files, containing the solutions:
The scripts must be uploaded as soon as
possible after the 4 work hours has passed.
For creating the files it is recommended to use the application named
CamScanner, available both for
Android and
Apple based cell phones. Using
CamScanner it is easy to make photographs of the papers,
crop, resize and rearrange the pages and save the pictures
into a PDF. If your phone has internet connection, you can
upload the files immediately.
Each student will receive his personal
upload link. Please use only your own link.
For a demonstration, we made a short
video. Please
view
it to see how to use CamScanner. Test different camera
settings; perhaps it is better if flash is switched on.
Grading
All leaders are expected to participate in
grading. We created a project at ZulipChat for the grading
discussion. All Team Leaders will be invited there. Further
information for Team Leaders will be posted in ZulipChat.
Registration
Please don't leave registration to the last
moment. Each student has to enter his Team Leader, in order to
declare that they belong to that team. The Team Leader also
has to enter their team members' e-mail addresses. In both
cases, the address must be typed precisely. We have seen
several difficulties caused by using multiple e-mail
addresses, mixing lower and upper case letters or putting
spaces in e-mail addresses. We try to correct errors. If you
have any difficulty, please contact the organizers.
The registration fee is 25 GBP (British
Pounds) for students who belong to a team, so both the student
and their team leader must declare that the student belongs to
the team. In all other cases the student is considered
"teamless" and their fee is 50 GBP (British Pounds). There is
no fee for Team Leaders.
The deadline for
paying the registration fee is 30 July. From 31
July, registration will be closed and all students who did
not pay, and all leaders who are not leaders or deputy
leaders of a team, will be deleted.