This Olympiad was based on the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) but differed from it in a few important respects. The most obvious was size: nine countries were represented by four students each. This made the Jury a much more intimate group. As a consequence all Team Leaders put in an extraordinary effort as we worked flat out for several days; first setting the problems, then marking the students' work.
Another interesting difference was the examination itself. There were three parts to the assessment. The first one was a 'short answer' test, which consisted of 20 questions that lasted for 120 minutes. Each question was worth just one mark so this test was easily marked. The second one contained longer problems, nearer in style to IMO problems. Here the students had 180 minutes to answer 5 questions. These questions were given 7 marks each and naturally proved more difficult to mark. Finally there was a team test. Here all the students from a country worked together on a set of 10 problems worth 20 marks, each over 60 minutes.
As a result of all these problems, there were individual winners (using a gold, silver and bronze medal system like the IMO) and team winners. The gold team prize went to Vietnam, the silver to Singapore and the bronze to Thailand.
I have written a longer report that will appear in the November Newsletter of NZAMT. Anyone who doesn't regularly see that Newsletter can get a copy of that report by writing to me C/- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin. (Please don't send email!) Derek Holton