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Rules

Eligibility

All matriculated CUNY undergraduates are eligible to enter.

Registration

Online registration is available here.

Contest Duration & Deadlines

The contest begins online at 9:00 A.M. on Monday, February 15, 2010 and ends at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, April 25, 2010 with an in-person exam. The contest will consist of five rounds. The first four rounds will take place entirely online and run for eight weeks, with each round remaining open two weeks. The fifth and final round will consist of an in-person exam.

Round 1 - 4

  • Round 1 will open on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 9:00 A.M. Five questions will be posted. Registered participants will have until Monday, March 1 at 5:00 A.M. to submit their responses for Round 1.
  • Round 2 will open on Monday, March 1, 2010 at 9:00 A.M. Five questions will be posted. Registered participants will have until Monday March 15 at 5:00 A.M. to submit their responses for Round 2.
  • Round 3 will open on Monday, March 15, 2010 at 9:00 A.M. Five questions will be posted. Registered participants will have until Monday March 29 at 5:00 A.M. to submit their responses for Round 3.
  • Round 4 will open on Monday, March 29, 2010 at 9:00 A.M. Five questions will be posted. Registered participants will have until Monday April 12 at 5:00 A.M. to submit their responses for Round 4.

Round 5

Round 5 will consist of a 3-hour in-person exam to be held at Baruch College at 10:00 A.M. on Sunday, April 25, 2010. Students will be selected to take the exam based upon their performances in Rounds 1 - 4. Selected students will be notified at least one week in advance of the in-person exam by email. Students must present their CUNY IDs to be allowed to sit for the exam.

Contest Submission Process

Answers for Rounds 1 - 4 can be submitted in one of three ways:

1. Online (the preferred method). Once logged into his/her account, a student will be able to upload answer files for each round. Three file formats will be accepted: .doc, .pdf, .jpg. Please note: Users of Microsoft Word 2007 should save their documents as Word Documents with a .doc extension, not as Word 2007 Documents (the default) with a .docx extension. If the student chooses to handwrite his/her answers, he/she must digitize the answers (i.e., scan it, take a digital photo), save the files in one of the approved formats, and upload the files from the student’s “My Challenge” page. Students may resubmit answers as many times as needed, but the last submission will always override the previous submission. Each file submitted should include the student's name and Challenge User ID, which was contained in the confirmation email sent at the point of registration. Students are encouraged to use the solution sheet template.

2. U.S. Postal Service. Answers may be sent via the U.S. Postal Service. Submissions should be on the solution sheet template. Please fill out all the fields at the top of the page. Note that the Challenge User ID was contained in the confirmation email sent at the point of registration. Submissions should be on only one side of the paper and pages should be stapled together in the order of the questions. Submissions must be postmarked by the deadline (5:00 A.M. on the Monday of the round, as explained above) and sent to:

CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
Computer Science Department, Room 4319
Attn: CUNY Math Challenge
New York, NY 10016

3. In-Person. Answers may be dropped off at the CUNY Graduate Center on the Friday before the Monday deadline (as explained above) between the hours of 1:30-3:30 P.M. Submissions should be on the solution sheet template and the fields at the top of the page should be completed. Note that the Challenge User ID was contained in the confirmation email sent at the point of registration. Submissions should be on only one side of the paper and pages should be stapled together in the order of the questions.

Under no circumstances will submissions received after the deadline for a given round be accepted.

Grading

Solutions will be graded based upon several factors including mathematical correctness, supporting arguments, and clarity of presentation. Partial credit will be granted. Carefully written justifications are required for each problem. A correct answer without support will receive very little credit. Scratch work or formulas with no explanation should not be submitted. In the case of handwritten submissions, if the submission is illegible it will not be graded. If a computer calculation is important or central to the solution, the algorithm that is programmed must be described. Source code or executables should NOT be submitted.

The level of difficulty of the problems in each round varies—some of the questions are very challenging. You don't need to solve all five or four or even three in a given round to do well. Solving all five questions correctly would be an extremely impressive feat!

Point Scales

All 20 questions in Rounds 1 - 4 will have the same point value of 5. Answers will be posted after the close of each round; scores will be posted approximately one week later. Students can access their scores on their “My Challenge” page. At the close of Round 4, approximately 30 of the highest-scoring students will be invited to Round 5 to sit for the in-person exam.

Judging

A committee of faculty from mathematics and computer science departments across CUNY is responsible for scoring answers. Decisions of these contest organizers are final.

Awards

Cash prizes range from $500 up to a grand prize of $2,500, funded by the Academic Leadership Award received by Chancellor Goldstein from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.