Waterloo's Grade 9 contest — where Part C stops being multiple choice.
Students in Grade 9. Only one of Pascal, Cayley or Fermat may be written in a given year. source
Correct answers are worth 5 marks in Part A, 6 in Part B and 8 in Part C, out of 150. A wrong answer costs nothing, and an unanswered question earns 2 marks — but only for your first ten blanks. Past ten, a blank earns nothing and a guess can only help. Note Part C no longer offers options to eliminate: you must produce a whole number from 0 to 99, so the guess-from-five tactic that works on Gauss does not apply here. source
The summary line still reads '25 multiple-choice questions', but the detailed description on the same page — and the contest paper itself — say Part C takes a whole number from 0 to 99. The detailed wording is the accurate one. It matters: on Part C there are no options to eliminate, so the guessing tactics that work on Gauss stop working here.
Each unanswered question earns 2 marks, to a maximum of ten unanswered. Past ten blanks you earn nothing for leaving a question empty, and since wrong answers carry no penalty, guessing from there can only help.
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Original CREST Champs problem sets built to match this competition's format, timing and difficulty — our own content, so you can sit one today rather than waiting for the real date.
Mostly, but not entirely. Parts A and B are traditional five-option multiple choice. Part C asks for a whole number from 0 to 99, so there is nothing to eliminate and a blind guess is close to worthless. CEMC's own summary line still says '25 multiple-choice questions', which is out of date — their detailed description and the paper both describe Part C as integer answer.
Leave up to ten blank — each unanswered question is worth 2 marks. After ten, the credit stops, and because a wrong answer carries no penalty there is no reason not to guess on Parts A and B.
No. CEMC states you may not write more than one of the three in any given year.