Canadian Mathematical Olympiad (CMO) The CMO is supported by Sun Life Financial Services of Canada, the CMS, and teachers at the university and high school level.

Participation in the CMO

The Canadian Mathematical Olympiad (CMO) is a closed competition whose candidates require an invitation from the Canadian Mathematical Society. This is to ensure, as far as is possible, that students writing the competition are aware of its nature, have had competition experience and can be expected to do reasonably well.

There are a number of ways to secure an invitation:

1. The main route to an invitation is doing well on the Open (the Sun Life Financial Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge, also known as the COMC), written in the previous November. Normally, the top 50 students from the Open receive a direct invitation to write the CMO.
2. The next 150 or so top Open participants are invited to write the Canadian Mathematics Olympiad Qualifying Repêchage (CMOQR). Students who do well on the Repêchage are then invited to write the CMO. In some circumstances, the Chairs of the Open and CMO Committees, in consultation with the Chair of the Mathematical Competitions Committee (MCC), may authorize other students to write the Repêchage. Students participating in the Repêchage receive, electronically, a set of ten problems, whose solutions must be submitted within a week of receipt.
3. The Chair of the CMO Committee may invite students who perform well in the Alberta or Quebec provincial competitions.
4. Normally, students who have done well in past CMO, APMO and USAMO competitions, as well as those who have participated in training camps for the IMO, are invited.
5. Finally, the Chair of the CMO Committee may invite students who, in his/her opinion, will make a credible attempt; such students, for example, may have participated in the Mathematics Olympiads Correspondence Program (Olymon).

Prizes

The First Prize winner in the 2009 Canadian Mathematical Olympiad receives the Sun Life Cup and $2 000. In addition, the Second Prize winner receives $1 500, the Third Prize winner receives $1 000 and students earning an Honourable Mention (approximately six students) receive $500 each.

In order to be eligible for prizes the student:

• must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who is in full-time attendance at an elementary or secondary school, or CEGEP since September of the year prior to the CMO;
• be less than 20 years old as of June 30 of the year of the CMO; and
• must not have written the Putnam Competition.

Succeeding at the CMO

It is important to emphasize that any student who is invited to write the CMO should be aware that success will require mathematics at a higher level than is taught in most schools, and therefore should prepare specifically for the competition. The Society has several resources available, including questions and solutions from previous competitions (available below), books in the ATOM Series and the journal Crux Mathematicorum with Mathematical Mayhem, which is strongly recommended.

Past Winners

The following all list the same information, but are sorted in a variety of ways:

Resources for competitors

Previous test papers:

Previous solutions:

Books:

• The Canadian Mathematical Olympiad 1969-1993. Includes the problems and solutions for the first 25 years of the CMO, in both English and French.
• A Taste of Mathematics (ATOM) series. In particular, ATOMs 1, 3, and 6 through 9 are excellent for competition training.

Periodicals:

• Crux Mathematicorum with Mathematical Mayhem is published 8 times per year and is specifically designed for advanced problem-solving at the Olympiad level.

Annual competition reports

Oversight of the CMO

The Canadian Mathematical Olympiad is managed by the CMO Committee of the Canadian Mathematical Society. The terms of reference it operates under can be found here.

Please report any errors to chair-cmoc@cms.math.ca.