Hello
I would like to know about what is the criteria of choosing the team that will represent your country in IOI and what is the criteria of training students, is programming is studied in high schools in your country and details about this stuff.
I'll start by talking about Olympiad system in Syria:
in Syria there's one organization that is responsible for all science Olympiad (maths, informatics , chemistry , physics , biology) all events for all subjects happens in the same time.
each year there's mainly three events
1- Central national Olympiad (in January of every year):
this is the first step to enter the Olympiad world each student in first year of high school should choose only one subject to participate in, then they do elimination exams, so that the top 5 of every state in Syria is chosen to to participate in "Central national Olympiad", since programming is not teached in high schools the majority of students don't know programming thus, the exams are paper-wise which have many question ans puzzles which needs way of thinking similar to the one in competitive programming , after the top 5 is chosen from each state they are given some lessons about programming to get ready for "Central national Olympiad" that is held in Damascus (capital of Syria) , students have only one month to learn programming before "Central national Olympiad" , only top 10 will be members of "national team" students that fail of being in "national team" in first year of high school have no other chance to join it.
2- Selection contest (in march of every year):
only "national team" members are invited to this contest where top 4 in this contest are chosen to represent Syria in IOI
3- training camp (in June of every year):
all "national team" members are invited to this camp where they stay in Damascus for about 20 days to get training
What about your country?
sorry for my poor English
Lol, that looks like some kind of pathology xd.
Firstly — "each student in first year of high school should choose only one subject to participate in" — why the hell? If I lived in Syria I wouldn't be here, because in high school I will definitely chose maths.
"since programming is not teached in high schools the majority of students do know programming" — Did you mean "don't know"?
"Central national Olympiad (in January of every year): this is the first step to enter the Olympiad world (...) after the top 5 is chosen from each state they are given some lessons about programming to get ready for Central national Olympiad" — I don't understand? Top 5 from Central national Olympiad is chosen to participate in Central national Olympiad?
"students have only one month to learn programming before Central national Olympiad" — is someone forbidding them to learn programming earlier ; d?
"only top 10 will be members of "national team" students that fail of being in "national team" in first year of high school have no other chance to join it." — I simply don't understand that part
"sorry for my poor English" — I'm also not that good in English, but I will appreciate if you will sometimes use capital letters, dots etc. — that will make your text much more readable. I hardly understood some parts of your text — "chaos" is a pretty suitable word to describe it.
In Poland each year both OI and OM (informatics and math olympiads) consist of 3 stages. First stage is to be done in home in a period of 1/3 months (OI/OM). Second stage is held in bigger cities and there are two days consisting of 2/3 problems to be solved in 5 hours, of course this is an onsite event. Third stage is held in one particular place, has similar formula to second, but there are 3 problem per day. Top 4/6 in 3rd stage go to IOI/IMO. Why Olympiads can't look that way in every country? This is very fair way of chosing national teams, without any stupid rules about chosing only one olympiad (like in Syria), chosing only one international olympiad (like in Russia, Thailand) or chosing one year when you can qualify (sth like that holds in China). This process can be improved by organizing longer TSTs, though in Poland there is no such tradition. Due to the fact that qualification is based on results of 2 days only event there are often many surprises like me going to IOI, mnbvmar not going to IOI or JohnPaulII not going to IMO.
They say because you should focus your practice on only one subject so improving your skills gets better and faster in that subject. also all exams for all subjects happens in the same time so you can't be in two places in the same time.
Thanks, fixed.
before the Central national Olympiad there's elimination exams,only top 5 from each state are qualified to "Central national Olympiad" , since elimination exams end only one month before "Central national Olympiad" , so you have only one month to learn programming.
No , but they have to learn by themselves ,because programming lessons start after elimination exams end (so it's known who is qualified to "Central national Olympiad" )
The "Central national Olympiad" is only for students in first year of high school so if you fail, the next year you are in second year of high school ,thus you're not eligible to participate.
thanks for your opinion , I think I should practice in writing English texts.
or kaszubki not going to IMO.— he hasn't been included to polish team in 2013? He was drunk?This is exactly what I said about. Qualification based on 6 problems may not be that accurate as it could be. kaszubki messed one easy problem and hasn't solved any of 2 hard problems, while solving all 4 not hard problems was sufficient to qualify to IMO. Indeed, that year results are really a shame for Poland :(. It was a composition of qualification of 2 guys which you can call "surprises" (Marcin and Karol) and bad luck of 2 very good contestants (Konrad and Jakub), which were at least on level of silver medalist, I can vouch for that. I was organizer of my high school preparation camp and everyday Konrad and Jakub were coming up with solutions which were causing my brain to explode (in a positive meaning).
I have to say that Syria's Olympiad's system has many utter nonsenses xd...
They say because you should focus your practice on only one subject so improving your skills gets better and faster in that subject
This is clearly bulls***. If guy A was able to achieve better results during 18 years of preparing simultaneously to maths and algos, will guy B from 7th place will be better, because he can better focus on one topic? After final stage guy A will be preparing to both subjects and guy B to one, but as it was proven, A still gets better results preparing to both. It's all about motivation not about lack of time. It is clearly punishing someone because he is also good in other field — ridiculous.
No , but they have to learn by themselves ,because programming lessons start after elimination exams end (so it's known who is qualified to "Central national Olympiad" )
In Poland there are no programming lessons neither in high schools nor to guys preparing for Olympiad and nobody whines about it. You have to be able to code on the very beginning of Olympiad.
The "Central national Olympiad" is only for students in first year of high school so if you fail, the next year you are in second year of high school ,thus you're not eligible to participate.
I simply can't express how this thing is incredibly stupid! Failure on first year forbids you to compete on second year!?!? Argh!!! What if someone started to learn in second year? He got no chance to compete???
I'm so happy that I live in Poland, where we got normal qualification rules without such ridiculous rules like those mentioned earlier. Every year let all people compete and pick few best ones and send them to IOI/IMO — this is the only one fair way of qualifying — with no regard of previous performances or participations in other Olympiad e.g. mathematical.
it not about lack of overall time , it's about limited motovation time , for example if I have motivation to practice 5 hours per day then it's better to focus on only one subject. after all , nobody in Syria have complaint about this rule yet.
The problem is the majority of high school students don't know about international science Olympiad until they know about national Olympiad, that's why it's rare to see some high school student who know programming.
The organizers say that since there's only 3 years in high school so taking students from first year give 3 years period of practicing before they enter a university (it's not good to coach a student from beginning if he/she has only one year before entering a university).
The idea of "national team" is to choose the best students then give them special training all the time when they are in high school , do the organizers in Poland give such care for the students? of course they can't give special training to all students in Poland , anyway even if the selection Olympiad was open for every student I think only students from "national team" will qualify to the international Olympiad because they took special training over all other students
it not about lack of overall time , it's about limited motovation time , for example if I have motivation to practice 5 hours per day then it's better to focus on only one subject. after all , nobody in Syria have complaint about this rule yet.
I will repeat myself using an example.
Before Olympiads: Guy A trained to OI and OM, guy B trained to OI
On Olympiads: Guy A took 2nd place in both OI and OM, guy B took 5th place at OI, so he is outside best four going to IOI by default.
Organizers have choice: Whether to chose guy A to both International Olympiads or to let guy B participate in IOI and guy A in IMO.
After Olympiad: If guy A will be allowed to participate in both, he will have the same conditions as before, and the same goes for guy B. But guy A achieved better results in exactly the same conditions as before, so guy A will be better than guy B if nothing changes!
Moreover, reasoning you presented, whether it is correct or wrong, is directed to achieving best possible results devoting justice! Is leaving behind justice in order to achieve better results acceptable to you? For me it is unacceptable and moreover it will not bring better results, because of reasoning I presented earlier.
The problem is the majority of high school students don't know about international science Olympiad until they know about national Olympiad, that's why it's rare to see some high school student who know programming.
I don't accept this reasoning. Read what I've written once again. In Poland people have to learn to code on their own what makes all your argument here invalid. Some people learn coding in order to start in OI, some learn it in order to create games or whatever and they can use their previously gained abilities in Olympiad, but still, they have to learn it on their own and it is normal.
The organizers say that since there's only 3 years in high school so taking students from first year give 3 years period of practicing before they enter a university (it's not good to coach a student from beginning if he/she has only one year before entering a university).
Aaaaa, help me, that reasoning is so stupid, it gave me cancer. Why someone who learnt hard on his own throughout second year of high school is not allowed to compete on third year? Is there such a word in Syria as "independence"? Is everybody in Syria necessarily guided by other people? Programmers need to constantly learn new things completely on their own and from what you're saying I got an impression that in your country people don't know what "on their own" mean.
The idea of "national team" is to choose the best students then give them special training all the time when they are in high school , do the organizers in Poland give such care for the students? of course they can't give special training to all students in Poland ,
You're right that because of big amount of all competitors, organizers can't constantly care about all of them individually, but I will counter it with probably not that polite, but strong argument — compare Poland's and Syria's results on IOI/CF/everywhere — I believe nothing more has to be added.
I must strongly disagree with a few arguments.
1) I agree with you that restricting anyone to taking part in only one international science olympiad is quite nonunderstandable. The only profit is that more people go there. However, we end up with worse teams.
2) I don't accept this reasoning. Read what I've written once again. In Poland people have to learn to code on their own what makes all your argument here invalid. Some people learn coding in order to start in OI, some learn it in order to create games or whatever and they can use their previously gained abilities in Olympiad, but still, they have to learn it on their own and it is normal.
You seem not to notice that in Poland there are a few high schools which do their best to have the best contestants as possible (Warsaw, Gdynia, Wroclaw, Bialystok, Krakow, forgive me if I forgot something). They make their own camps and meetings; they use their own online judges; sometimes learn the basics of programming necessary for olympiads (no, not learning how to draw graphs in your programming language as I did — though it's valuable, too). Maybe it's missing in Syria?
Warning: I didn't state that these schools are "olympiad contestants factories". Everyone still needs to pay an enermous amount of time to become good at this. However, it's a bit easier in Poland.
3) [some load of words] Why someone who learnt hard on his own throughout second year of high school is not allowed to compete on third year?
Yeah, it's a bit cruel. However, it's a matter of a country (and probably everyone will defend his/her arguments). In the USA, people are selected at USAICO a month or a few before IOI. On the contrary, the Chinese select their best 20 contestants about a year before IOI (source: Development and Exploration of Chinese National Olympiad in Informatics (CNOI), Olympiads in Informatics, 2007, Vol. 1, 165–174). And the selection process may seem ridiculous for the foreigners (citation):
(...) Then we arrange 4 contests and structures in order to select the best 4 contestants from these 20. Each part has a different weight or score. These structures and their proportions are respectively:
Besides the score, we also check the comprehentive character and English proficiency of contestants.
(of course, it may have changed by now). Surprisingly, the China team was in 2007 (the article I mentioned was about that IOI) the only team to win four gold medals.
4) [blah][blah] "independence" [blah] necessarily guided [blah] "on their own" [blah]
Do you want the people from Syria to be forced to connect with CF using the anonymous proxy? :D
Note that if you actually practice 5 hours per day in total (and no, practice doesn't mean procrastination), productively and long-term, then you'd achieve godly skill very quickly. Splitting that time in half would make your progress much more reasonable and avoids being fed up with 1 subject.
Actually, screw that. Is it possible to do the tests in 2 subjects at the same time?
That nobody's complained yet isn't something to be proud about... I wonder what's the reason for weird selection processes everywhere? Lack of funding? Lack of interest from the organizers? It apparently isn't just olympiad-immaturity, seeing what Poland and Czech Republic are doing sometimes...
here in Venezuela, the support to this kind of competition is almost nothing, indeed in my town there is not this kind of competition, when i moved to Caracas (the capital) and i began the university was the first time i heard about this kind of competitions (math or programming).
In the U.S., there are monthly contests called USACO (USA Computing Olympiad) from November to April. There are 3 divisions, Bronze, Silver, and Gold; exceptional performance in any division will move you to the next one. At the end of the contest season, the top 24 high-school students in the Gold Division are selected to attend a week-long training camp, where there will be lectures for the bottom 12 and mainly contests for the top 12 to determine to IOI team.
Note that the top 24 not only reflects on performance, but also on grade, so younger students will have a higher advantage. If you were in the lower 12 before, you must be in the top 12 next year to attend training camp again.
is the week-long training camp the only way to get training? I mean , do the 24 high-school gained all that skills in programming with self training ? impressive.
No, of course the high schoolers have to train by themselves, because they all started out in bronze and made their way up to gold.
More information here: usaco.org
You may find this Quora question useful.
I'll explain how it works in Argentina (or at least how it worked back in 2005 when I took part).
This text was written after similar question from Iranian team's leaders (it consists of several parts, so order of paragraphs can be a bit strange)
First of all, we have 4-level national olympiad. There are school, municipal, regional and final stages. Regional stage have place on same two days in all Russia and works as selection for finals.
Then we have two training camps a year. They have place at December and May (if IOI is not very close, then in June instead) and last about two weeks each. On camp there are about twenty students who was good in national olympiad finals or on previous camps.
Winter camp is mostly training, summer camp is mostly selection for IOI. We have 4 selection contest. Also some other achievements (national olympiad, previous camps, last year IOI) may be considered. And we have some other training contest on summer camp and winter camp. Most of them are just IOI-like contests. Also sometimes there is one ACM-like contest on camp, or blitz contest (something like 24 quite easy problems from 5 hours). Also we have about 1 online round a month from September to May and permanently working online judge with problems of IOI 2003-now (btw, we are woring on publish it).
There is the same set of about 20 students for all camp. It's about 6-7 11-grade 9-10 10-grade and 4-5 9-grade and sometimes 1-2 8-th grade(of 11 in Russia). They are different for winter and summer camp.
School and municipal stage is made on place and can be taken in very different way. Regional and finals are two days of IOI-like five-hours contest on same tasks for all Russia. Regional is organised by persons onsite in each region (83 regions in Russia, about 70 do that), than common rank list is formed and about 100 11-th grade, 100 10-th grade and 50 9-th grader are invited to finals.
Finals is two-day ioi-like contest. Covered topics are quite close to ioi syllabus, probably a bit more wide.
The Bulgarian competitions and qualifications for IOI go as follows:
The first and most important detail is that our competitions are divided into groups. There are 5 groups (In Bulgaria we graduate high school in 12th grade).
Group E — the youngest group. Consists of competitors that are 5th grade or below, and has really easy problems usually requiring simple logic and maybe some loops!
Group D — the second group. Consists of competitors that are in 6th grade (or 7th, according to the latest rules I believe), and has harder problems than E, but still relatively easy.
Group C — this is the group that forms the junior team. The problems are usually the same complexity as JBOI problems, maybe easier. Consists of people of 8th grade according to the latest rules.
Group B — consists of competitors that are in 9th or 10th grade and has some harder algorithmic problems.
Group A — the hardest group, consists of competitors in 11th or 12th grade. This group has no limits on difficulty and while sometimes there may be easy problems, sometimes there are problems harder than IOI itself.
On every competition each competitor chooses a group and participates in it. Each competition has 5 set of 3 tasks for each group. You are allowed to participate in a higher group, but not lower. That is if you are 8th grade you could go to A or B, but not in D or E. There is a separate ranking for each group and you can get a scholarship if you get in top3 in the national olympiad or in the winter or spring contest.
All official Bulgarian contests are in the same format. You have 3 (very rarely 4) problems and 5 hours to solve them. For groups E,D,C time constraints may be different. Sometimes E may have 3 or 4 hours and D,C may have 4. However A and B groups always get 5 hours.
There are three national contests through the year and one olympiad. The contests do not affect IOI qualifications but are a good way to check you level among other competitors around the country, and you can get a scholarship for reaching top3. The contests are "Autumn Contest", "Winter Contest" and "Spring Contest".
The way of choosing IOI team is through the National Olympiad. It is held in three rounds. You must participate in the same group in all three rounds. In the final round competitors from A and B solve the same problems (with difficulty of problems of group A) but in rounds 1 and 2 they solve different kinds of problems. Also there are separate rankings for the sake of choosing winners in each group, but the qualifications for senior team are from the mixed ranking of A and B.
First round, pretty much everyone can pass. It's basicly for schools and cities with a lot of competitiors to choose who really has any point of going to round 2.
The second round is more official, the programmer compete in their hometowns and the programs are sent to the official commitee after the competition and are graded there, then in a day or two the results are published and some people qualify for third round of the national olympiad. About 35 people from group A, 15 from group B, 20 from group C, 15 from group D and 15 from group E qualify for the third and final round.
The third round is the most important competition in the year. It is held in two days and all competitors gather in some city, and is usually held in the end of April. For groups E and D, it is just like another national competitions as they can't qualify for national team. Group C is fighting for qualifying in the "Junior national team" that later goes to JBOI, and groups A and B are united in the final round, solving the same problems and trying to get into the "Senior national team" that later goes to IOI, BOI (maybe even CEOI).
From the summed score of both days, an "extended junior team" and "extended senior team" are formed. Both consist of 12 people of the corresponding groups( C for junior, A or B for senior ). Then in the next one or two months the extended teams go through a few more competitions that are only for them and they add their scores to the score they got on the national olympiad. After all the competitions, the top4 from the extended teams form the official teams of Bulgaria.
There is an additional rule, that if BOI is after IOI, then competitiors studying in 12th grade (graduation year), can't go to BOI, and they give up their places to the next ones in the extended team.
Note : BOI — Balkan Olympiad in Informatics
P.S.
Sorry for the long post! :D
Finally some sanity in this mad world! :D
The rounds are quite analogous to what we have in Slovakia — home, regional and national round, plus an intensive (7 hours a day) selection camp.
We have just 2 categories: B for ppl with at least 2 years to graduation (I find this more informative than grades, since every country's school system is different), which doesn't have a national round, and A for everyone; the camp then selects 4+4 ppl for IOI and CEOI from 12+ best/young in A category.
In case anyone was curious, Slovak selection camps (not that I'd expect it to say much to anyone who wasn't there...)
2012 results
2013 resuts
2014 results a)
2014 results b)