CMSC 2021 frequently asked questions

CMSC FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

CKSTEM Math Summer Contest (CMSC) Details

The International Canadian Math Summer Contest, popularly known as CMSC-2021 is an initiative by Competitive Kids STEM to provide students across the globe with an opportunity to showcase their talent and develop their skills. The contest is designed in a manner that will challenge and promote problem solving, critical thinking, reasoning, abstract or spatial thinking as well as communication for the students. Participants will be required to write 2 rounds of tests during summer 2021 - Preliminary & Final Round.

CMSC-2021 is designed for students with a wide range of abilities and will keep them engaged and focused during the summer months when school is out. They are also particularly valuable for high achieving students who need to be really stretched as we provide access to mathematical support beyond the school. We have put together a large set of brain fertilizers and drills for students to practice and win, similar to sports encouraging physical fitness, our brain fertilizers and practice drills encourage mental prowess and emotional fitness.

We are conducting several Information sessions from March-May 2021 where our team will provide key information regarding the summer contests. These sessions are absolutely FREE and you need not be a registered student at the time of attending the information session. You can sign up for the contest later at anytime within the registration period.You can also subscribe to our website as well as follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get the latest updates.

A parent/guardian can enroll a student/students by signing up at CKSTEM Learning Portal using a google or microsoft account. This account will be used by the student to access the contest, training material etc. Each student needs to be registered using a unique Google or Microsoft account, no two or more students can be registered under the same Google/Microsoft account.

A school cannot register directly for the summer contest as we only offer individual student accounts. An authorized school representative can send an email to [email protected] to register. We will then set up a school in our system so that students can select the registered school during or after the registration. All student’s will be required to register individually by their parents/guardians. To help teachers to encourage their students, we will also provide a coupon code to the registered schools so that their students can participate for free. In order for a registered school to be eligible for competing for the “School Award”, there should be a minimum of 20 students registered under that school name (the students may be from Grades 3-8).

This contest is open to all students currently in Grades 3-8, as per the 2020-2021 school year. A parent/guardian can register a student/ students for the competition using google or microsoft account at CKSTEM Learning Portal. This contest is open to all students across the globe who are interested and meet the eligibility criteria. One need not be a Canadian resident to participate, however, the final competition will be during the day in Eastern Timezone, hence, the student should be available and able to participate accordingly.

TThe contest is divided into 2 rounds - Preliminary round and Final round. Preliminary round is the qualifying round and the top 10% of students in this round will be invited to participate in the Final round. The final round is by invitation only and only qualified students from the preliminary round will be invited to write it. Final round will be conducted live on a zoom call.

We have two test categories: one for elementary school students (grade 3-5) and other for middle school (grade 6-8) students. All students within a category will write the same test.

We have two test categories: one for elementary school students (grade 3-5) and other for middle school (grade 6-8) students. All students within a category will write the same test.

The preliminary round will be on 5-11 July, 2021 and students can participate anytime from July 4, 2021 from11:59pm ET to 11:59pm ET on July 11, 2021. Final round will be on August 14, 2021 and will be proctored by CKSTEM. This will be done virtually over Zoom call. More details around time, logistics etc will be provided to the finalists.

The registration is now open and will remain open till July 4, 2021. However, 100% early bird registration discount maynot be available for long during the registration period, so we highly encourage you to register early and reserve your spot.

This is an online competition. For the preliminary round, students can take the test anytime during the testing period however, the final round is proctored and students can only write during the time period specified. Also, as the final round is proctored, students will need to keep their cameras on during the contest to meet the proctoring requirements.

Considering the value provided by CMSC-2021 and the supporting prep course, this contest is very reasonably priced at $20CAD per student in order to mitigate the operating costs incurred. However, as a nonprofit organization, it's critical to us that no interested student miss this opportunity due to financial constraints and willing to offer significant discounts to reduce the fee. We are also willing to work with other organizations and schools that share our belief system and face similar financial constraints. We can review your situation and provide you required support. Feel free to contact us at [email protected]. In order to be able to bring this wonderful opportunity to thousands of students across the globe in a valuable and efficient manner, we strongly encourage individual donors and corporations to support us by donating to our cause.

We will not have multiple-choice questions in the contest. The preliminary round of the contest will have two parts. The first part is based on mental math and speed. We will be providing you an amazing set of brain fertilizers and drills to help you prepare for this round. You will be able to do unlimited practice from our question bank of over 20,000 questions. The rest of the questions in the preliminary round and the final round will be word problems. Our amazing team of educators are working on creating a unique blend of brand new questions for this competition. Given that one of our main goals is to also prepare the students for various international math contests e.g. UKMT, Mathcounts, AMC, CEMC, and many others, our complexity will match with these types of competitions. To help you practice, we will create a few practice tests from these competitions.

We have put together a special online Contest Preparation Course focused on mental math and speed. This includes a large set of brain fertilizers and drills for students to practice. As the complexity of our questions will match with various international math contests e.g. UKMT, Mathcounts, AMC, CEMC, etc., we will also be creating specific practice tests for the students from these competitions.

Yes, detailed solutions to the questions from the contest will be shared with the participants subsequently for learning and development through our learning portal.

You can enroll in our courses under various programs as appropriate for your skill and grade level. You can easily browse through our courses. In the coming days, we will publish our full-year programs for the upcoming school year of 2021-2022 beginning Fall 2021. It is important to note that as a non-profit organization, we focus on providing the best value and content to families at a highly affordable price. Our success lies in the success of our students.

We have shared an expansive list of FAQ’s covering a wide range of topics, however, if you have any additional questions or need any specific information, you can email us at [email protected] Please note that this program is being executed by volunteers who love to help their community. Hence, while we commit to responding back to the enquiries, we cannot guarantee a response time. Our volunteers do their best to get back to you as soon as possible.