Looking at a New Angle: Waterloo Math Contests

On Wednesday the 17th, 2021, the CIMC and CSMC Waterloo math contests were written by JMSS students alongside others all over the world. Participants registered through the school, received their packages on contest day, and completed the test remotely with supervision from parents and guardians.

Waterloo math contests have been offered as opportunities for the interested students to challenge themselves in problem solving since middle school. Past participants might remember the Gauss contests in grades 7 or 8, or the Pascal, Cayley and Fermat contests in grades 9, 10 and 11 respectively. This year, the tests included were the Canadian Intermediate Mathematics Contest (CIMC) for junior grades and the Canadian Senior Mathematics Contest (CSMC) for senior grades.

Last year, due to the pandemic, JMSS was not able to host any of the above mentioned tests. However, it was with great pleasure that they were welcomed back this November. Some changes had to be made to the format to be in line with social distancing requirements and covid restrictions, but this in no way modified the difficulty or layout of the original tests. Most notably, the tests were written at home because of limitations in the number of people allowed in a room—though they had to be carefully supervised by an adult to ensure that the integrity of the test was maintained.

The CIMC and CSMC both included 9 questions: six with answer only and three with full solutions required. The final score was out of sixty. Unlike typical multiple-choice math contests, marks were awarded for completeness, clarity and style of presentation. All of these, along with the correct answer, were necessary to receive top marks. This made the 9 question test especially challenging when students only had two hours to write it.

Questions were both skill-based and knowledge-based. Relatively simple math that is taught in the classroom had to be applied in more complex situations with added restrictions or backwards phrasing. It is designed to be a stretch for any high school student, yet also not completely unfamiliar. However, there does arise a slight problem. The CIMC includes curriculum content from up to grade 10 and the CSMC is based off knowledge from up to graduating year. Students who are in either grade 9 or grade 11 or who have do not have math in the first semester are automatically at a disadvantage because they have not learned all the concepts that can appear on the test. For example, one of the questions from this year’s CSMC test dealt with logarithms. They are only introduced in grade 12, so grade 11s were very lost on how to proceed with a solution. Such questions cannot even be attempted when the basic understanding has not been established.

Edward Zhang, a grade 11 student writing the CSMC this year, admitted that the test was very challenging—perhaps the most difficult math task he’d done to date. He said in an interview that “the questions are so simple to understand what they want but so hard to do”.

Since he also participated in the Gauss math contests in grade 7 and 8, he compared the two experiences of writing in-person and remotely as follows:

“In person is way more stressful. You can hear others flipping pages and you lose focus. Pencil scratches and other sounds at the school tend to become very distracting when you get stuck on a question. I would prefer it at home obviously, but I don’t know if others hold the integrity of the contest. To maintain a fair competition, I would say it would still need to be done in person.”

Next year, he plans to write the test again. He does suggest that the contests should receive more exposure around the school, because he knew people who missed the short deadline and did not have the chance to participate. The timeline was very concise—the announcement being put out only two days before the test booklets had to be ordered. Nevertheless, it was an excellent opportunity for those who were able to make it.

Any students attending JMSS in following years are encouraged to write the Waterloo math contests if they are offered. The scores have no effect on any in-classroom activities, so it cannot impact anyone negatively. A little advice to future participants: published exams and test questions from previous years are excellent resources in order to practice approaching difficult problems from multiple angles. Even looking over the types of questions can help in the test situation. Good luck!