Rules

 

1. General

 

The European Mathematical Cup (EMC) is held every year in the late November or early December in the cities all over Europe.  The purpose of EMC is to prepare European high school students for other international competitions and to give them a chance to solve a few, hopefully, nice and challenging problems.

 

The competition can be organized on any of the 9 days, which include 2 full weekends, of the competition. The exact date varies by location and is usually chosen to be the most suitable within the given time-frame.

 

The EMC is free and open to all high school students from Europe.

 

 

 

2. Participation

 

The European Mathematical Cup is organized by the association Young Gifted Mathematicians “Marin Getaldić” in coordination with local organizers who are responsible for the competition in their city. Requirements for local organizers are described in clause 3.

 

Number of contestants from one local organization is limited to 12 across both categories subject to following exceptions.

 

A local organization can have more than 12 contestants if they mark the surplus of contestants themselves according to the rules set in section 3.

Or if at least one of the local organizers join the main coordination according as detailed in section 3.

Contestants are allowed to participate in EMC if they are eligible for the next year’s IMO.

 

The EMC is divided into two categories: Junior and Senior.

 

A student can participate in the Junior category if he/she is less than 17 years old on the day of contest, and he hasn’t yet participated in the IMO.

Any who is eligible to participate in the EMC can participate in the Senior Category.

Local organizers may set additional criteria for students to participate in the Junior category, in agreement with the Central Jury

 

 

3. Local organizers

 

Local organizers are people or organizations organizing EMC in their city. (In particular, local organizers are usually university students or mathematics professors). We are usually asking them to do the following:

 

Before the contest they should inform all the potential contestants about the competition and its regulations. They should choose where and when the contest will be held and make all the necessary arrangements.

To organize the contest. At the venue (usually a classroom in a local school or university) they hand the problem sheets to contestants (translated to their language if necessary). We ask them to ensure that contestants follow the rules.

After the contest, they should collect contestants’ solutions, scan (a legible photographic image is perfectly fine) and send them to the Central Jury. We ask them to attach (not necessary detailed) translations of those parts of contestants’ work they consider might be worth marks. The translations should be in English or Croatian language and Latin script, all parts of students’ work, not translated in this fashion, will not be marked.

We expect to receive the scripts, which are to be marked by the Central Jury, no later than 5 days after the last day of the competition.

For local organizers, who decide to mark all or part of their students' works, we will provide detailed marking schemes of all solutions known to the Central Jury, soon after the last day of the competition. We still expect to receive scans of locally marked scripts no later than 8 days after the last day of the competition. We ask that all parts of student’s work which were awarded marks to be translated so the Central jury can ensure the uniformity of the marking.

Local organizers who join the central marking procedure will be paired with another coordinator and assigned approximately half of the scripts for one problem.

Additionally, we invite local organizers to help us by proposing problems. The idea of EMC is that all the problems are original (not already seen on the Internet or some other competition). So we invite local organizers to send us problem proposals. The problems not selected for the competition are kept confidential. It is allowed to propose problems which are not entirely original, but in such cases, we require the full background of such a problem including whether it has appeared on another competition.

 

 

 

4. Contest regulations

 

(Contest regulations are very similar to the IMO contest regulations.)

 

Each contestant may receive the problems in one or two languages subject to the local organizers.

 

Each contestant must work independently and submit solutions in his/her own language or in English (depending on the local organizers). We ask contestants to write on only one side of plain A4 paper. Students are expressly forbidden to write attempts at different problems on the same sheet. Each paper should contain students name, city, category, number of the problem and page number.

 

The only instruments permitted in the contest will be writing and drawing instruments, such as rulers and compasses. In particular, books (with exceptions of dictionaries if writing in English), papers, table calculators, protractors, computers, and communication devices are not to be allowed. The local organizers should do their utmost to ensure that, no contestant has any information, direct or indirect, about any proposed problem. They must also ensure that all contest problems and solutions are kept strictly confidential until after the entire contest has finished.

 

The total number of certificates (first, second and third) will not exceed half the total number of contestants in each category. The numbers of first, second and third prizes will be approximately in the ratio 1:2:3. The top three contestants in each category will receive a gold, silver or bronze medal by post.

 

 

 

5. Coordination and results

 

For each problem, a contestant will receive an integer score out of a maximum of ten points.

 

As soon as possible after the contest, local organizers will receive preliminary results. When the preliminary results of the competition are announced, a contestant can raise an objection with his local organizer, assuming the local organizer agrees with the objection he can forward it to the Central Jury within a week of receiving preliminary results. In this case, the Jury will reconsider the contestant’s solution and contact the local organizer or the contestant for further clarification if necessary...

 

When the procedure of raising objections and reconsiderations of the awarded marks is finished, the preliminary results become final. They will be published on the official site of EMC and sent to local organizers at most two weeks after receiving preliminary.