Information about changes in the Junior Mathematical Olympiad (OMJ)

Attention!

OMJ organizers have provided the following information regarding changes in the first stage competition format.

You can familiarize yourself with them on the website https://omj.edu.pl/zmiany, the same text is presented below:

1. Announcement of changes in the first stage competition format

The Main Committee of the Junior Mathematical Olympiad and the Board of the Association for Mathematical Education wish to inform that from the XXI edition (school year 2025/26), the first stage competitions of the Junior Mathematical Olympiad will consist of a test part and a so-called problem part — written under controlled independence conditions. The correspondence part of the first stage competitions will not be conducted.

The test part of the first stage competitions will be conducted on the current principles and will take place on the last Thursday of September in schools registered to participate in the Olympiad. It will consist of 15 problems evaluated on a scale of 0−1/2−1 points.

The problem part of the first stage competitions will take place less than two weeks after the test part (on Wednesday) from 9:00-10:40 (100 minutes) and will also be conducted in registered schools.

The problem part of the first stage competitions will consist of 7 open problems, the solution of which requires presenting a short reasoning (similar to justifications of answers to test part problems). Each solution will be evaluated on a scale of 0−1−3 points, with the following assumptions taken into account when developing evaluation criteria.

• For reasoning that is fully correct or with minor errors not affecting the fact of overcoming the main difficulty of the problem, you can get 3 points.
• For reasoning that is incorrect or incomplete, but contains partial observations constituting noticeable progress towards the correct solution, you can get 1 point.
• For reasoning that is incorrect or incomplete, not containing significant progress towards the correct solution or for lack of justification, 0 points are awarded.

The evaluation of solutions to the problem part of the first stage competitions will be carried out by Regional Committees of the Olympiad. Based on the sum of results from the test part and problem part of the first stage competitions, a ranking list and qualifying thresholds (A and B, on the same principles as before) to the second stage competitions will be established in each district.

The format of the second and third stage competitions of the Olympiad will not change, as well as the scale for evaluating solutions to problems in these parts of the competitions (0−2−5−6 points).

Changes in the competition format are motivated primarily by the following two factors:

• the need to introduce a wide group of gifted students and their teachers to basic examples of problems requiring mathematical reasoning, the discussion of which does not exceed the scope and possibilities of school mathematical circle work, and under appropriate conditions — also mathematics lessons in primary school,
• the need to maintain transparent and fair rules for conducting first stage competitions of the Olympiad, preventing participants from using help from third parties and rapidly developing artificial intelligence tools.

2. Sample problem set with solutions

A sample problem set illustrating the problem part of the first stage competitions is available. Solutions have been attached to the set.

3. Schedule of the problem part of XXI OMJ

In the school year 2025/26, the first stage competitions will take place on the following dates:

• test part — September 25 (Thursday) from 9:00-10:15,
• problem part — October 8 (Wednesday) from 9:00-10:40.