British Columbia Colleges High School Mathematics Contest Overview

The contest is currently broken into two rounds of competition. A preliminary round is held (usually around the middle of March) in the local schools. The students who perform best in each school are then invited to participate in the final round (usually held around the end of April) at the regional sponsoring college. There is no threshhold mark that a student needs to achieve in order to come to the final round; the student simply needs to be among the top performers at the local high school.

The preliminary round has traditionally consisted of 15 multiple choice questions to be answered within 45 minutes, and is marked by a teacher at the school using an answer key provided. The final round usually consists of two parts of equal value: 10 multiple choice questions and 5 full-answer questions; students have 2 hours in which to complete the final round. Each round of competition takes place at 2 different levels: there is a junior level for students from grades 8 to 10, and a senior level for students in grades 11 and 12.

Most of the sponsoring colleges host the students at the final round together with an accompanying teacher from each school for a full day, providing some enrichment activities and/or entertainment for the students as well as some opportunity for professional development for the accompanying teachers. The nature and extent of these activities varies from college to college. Prizes for the final round competition are usually presented before the students leave for the day. Prizes can be books, cash or scholarships, again depending on the sponsoring college.

In 1999 we had 9 sponsoring colleges in the province, thereby making this contest the closest thing to a provincial mathematics contest that we have. The sponsoring colleges in 1999 were:

• Camosun College (Victoria)
• Capilano College (North Vancouver)
• College of the Rockies (Cranbrook)
• Langara College (Vancouver)
• Malaspina University College (Nanaimo)
• Okanagan University College (Kelowna)
• The College of New Caledonia (Prince George)
• The University College of the Cariboo (Kamloops)
• University College of the Fraser Valley (Abbottsford)

Contest problems are generated by a committee of faculty primarily from these sponsoring colleges. The questions usually vary in level of difficulty, but the intent is that every reasonably good high school student can be successful at many of the questions with only a few problems of the more challenging variety. The aim of the contest is to promote mathematics and the fun of doing mathematics; the aim is NOT to identify the cream of the math students in the province -- there are several other existing contests (national and international) which already do this.

Old contests and solutions are available in a couple of books: "Cariboo College High School Mathematics Competition Problems 1973-1992" and its companion "... Solutions ..." book are available for purchase from the bookstore at U.C.C. They cost $18.67 each or $35.20 for two (G.S.T. and postage inside the province included). Profits (if any) from the sale of these books will be used to provide future scholarships for students of mathematics.