We're excited to welcome students back to the UC Berkeley campus on November 2, 2024, for this year's Berkeley Math Tournament! As in past years, the contest will consist of three rounds: Power, Individual, and Guts.
BMT is open to high school students in grades 12 or below. In particular, there is no lower age limit to participate; advanced middle school students are welcome to compete. Teams may have up to 6 students. You do not have to be local to the Bay Area or California to register for BMT.
Registration PortalRegistration Timeline
Registration will open on Monday, September 16 at 9:00 AM PT. This year, registration will take place in two phases to give smaller organizations an opportunity to register.
Limited Capacity Available
Due to room constraints, there is a limited number of seats available for this event. The exact limit is yet to be finalized, but it will be greater than 750 students. While we don't expect to reach this limit in Phase 1, we encourage coaches to register as soon as possible to guarantee space.
| Dates | Registration Period | Price Per Student | Additional Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9/16 – 9/30 | Phase 1 | $15 | Limited to 36 seats per organization. Shirts may be pre-ordered for $8 per student. |
| 10/1 – 10/14 | Phase 2 | $15 | No limit on seats per organization. Shirts may be pre-ordered for $8 per student. |
| 10/15 – 10/26 | Late Registration | $25 | Shirts are not guaranteed, but may be purchased day-of for $10. |
*All dates are in US Pacific Time. That is, Phase 2 registration ends at 11:59 PM PT on 10/14/2024.
**For students facing financial hardship, please contact team@berkeley.mt for a fee waiver.
Student Eligibility
- Students must be in grade 12 or below to be eligible for BMT.
- Students do not have to be local to the Bay Area, California, or the U.S. to participate in BMT. However, we will offer BMT Online in either December or January (TBA), which may be more convenient for some students.
- Coaches may register multiple teams under the same organization. We ask that organizations provide at least one adult chaperone for every two teams.
How to Register
Most pre- and post-contest tasks, including registration, team assignments, signing of waivers, and viewing score reports, may be completed at ContestDojo, an online math competition platform. If you are unfamiliar with ContestDojo, please read our ContestDojo Guide.
All contestants under 18 are required to have their parent/guardian sign UC Berkeley's consent waivers through this portal. Contestants will NOT be allowed to take the contest without having a signed liability and consent to treatment waiver. Students 18 and over may self-sign these waivers.
Any questions about the ContestDojo portal should be directed to us at team@berkeley.mt.
Teammate Finder
Students may register as a team of 1. However, it is beneficial to compete on a team of at least 4 due to our scoring guidelines. For students who do not have a full team, we have organized a Teammate Finder spreadsheet. Follow all outlined steps in the spreadsheet.
Travel and Transportation
UC Berkeley is situated in the East Bay region of Northern California, just across the bay from San Francisco. The Berkeley campus is a 10 to 15 minute walk from the Downtown Berkeley BART transit station, which connects directly to both the Oakland and San Francisco airports. Berkeley is also easily accessible by car. Information about parking can be found in our FAQ.
A printable PDF map of campus can be found here, and more maps can be found at berkeley.edu/map. Note that the top of the PDF map represents the eastern parts of campus. Google Maps is also usually reliable for navigating campus.
Hotels
New this year, for teams who are interested in booking a hotel room, we have a Hotel Room Block with discounted rates at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza around contest weekend.
Schedule
Our event schedule is yet to be finalized, but we expect the tournament to start at 7:30 AM and end before 8:00 PM, with a lunch break in the middle.
Lunch
This year, we are offering lunch for students, coaches, and parents at $12 per person, catered from Crave Subs, a sandwich store local to Berkeley. Those who wish to take this option must pre-order on ContestDojo through their coach. There are three menu items to choose from:
- Ned Flanders — Turkey, Crave Sauce, Lettuce, & Tomato
- Mr. Incredible — Pastrami, Crave Sauce, Lettuce, & Tomato
- Vegan Marvin The Martian — Cucumbers, Pesto, Arugula, Crave Sauce, Lettuce, & Tomato
Students, coaches and parents are also free to find their own food. Many restaurants can be found on the south side of campus (~5 minute walk from rooms) and in Downtown Berkeley (~15 minute walk from rooms).
Contest Format
Power Round (90 mins)
The Power Round is a proof-based team round. Contestants will answer a series of questions centered around a single topic not typically seen in competitive mathematics, culminating in incredible results in the field of that chosen topic. For all questions (unless stated otherwise), teams will need to provide a rigorous mathematical justification for their assertions in full sentences.
The topic for the Power Round will likely be at an undergraduate level, but no substantial previous mathematical background is expected.
Individual Round
For the Individual Round, students may choose to take either the General Test or two Focus Tests.
General Test (90 mins)
The General Test is an individual test consisting of questions across the various subjects that comprise the Focus Tests. This test is intended to be easier than the Focus Tests and is highly recommended for students with less prior contest experience.
Focus Tests (60 mins)
There are four Focus Tests of 10 questions across four subjects — Algebra, Geometry, Discrete (Combinatorics and Number Theory), and Calculus. Each student can participate in two Focus Tests.
Guts Round (75 mins)
The Guts Round consists of 9 sets of 3 problems across various subjects in math. The key feature of this round is that each set must be turned in before the next set is given. All teams can see a live scoreboard with their standings.
Scoring
Individuals are only ranked within the tests they choose to take. Individual Round scores are determined by the number of correct answers. Each correct answer is worth 1 point, i.e. there is no weighting among the problems.
Team scores are determined based on a combination of teams' scores on the Guts and Power Rounds, as well as the Individual Round scores of their team members. The weights are displayed in the table in summary table below.
When weighting team scores, scores for a given test will be normalized by either the average of the top 10 scores or the top 10% of scores, whichever represents more students/teams. Additionally, if a student takes the General Test instead of the two Focus Tests, their score will only count for half as many points as the Focus Test combinations would.
Tiebreakers
A tiebreaking procedure is employed for top awards for each test. Ties are not broken for honorable mentions or calculating overall team scores.
To streamline the event, we have a new automatic tiebreaker policy this year, which works as follows:
- First, problems are ordered from hardest to easiest, based on the number of correct submissions.
- The n-th hardest problem is assigned a tiebreaking value of 2−n. For example, the hardest problem will have a tiebreaking value of ½, the second hardest problem will have a tiebreaking value of ¼, et cetera.
- Each student's tiebreaking index is calculated as the sum of their original score and the tiebreaker values of the problems that they correctly answered.
- Students are ordered by their tiebreaking index, determining their tiebroken rank.
In simpler terms, among those tied for the same score, whoever solved the hardest problem is placed the highest, followed by the one who solved the next hardest, and so on.
Additional Tiebreaker Procedure
If a tie remains on the Individual Round after the preceding automatic tiebreaking procedure -- i.e., if two students correctly answered precisely the same set of problems, then those students will participate in an additional Tiebreaker Round. Ties that remain on the Guts Round or Power Round will be tiebroken.
This 15-minute test will consist of either three (for the Focus Tests) or five (for the General Test) questions, and be scored primarily on correctness and secondarily on submission time; i.e. an earlier submission will be worth more than a later one with the same number of correct answers, but less than a later one with more correct answers.
Students may submit multiple times within the duration of the test, but only the last submission will be considered.
Round & Scoring Summary
| Power | General | Focus | Guts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Important Details | Proof-based | Students may choose to participate in either the General Test or two separate Focus Tests, but not both. | Submitted and scored live in sets of 3 | |
| Location | Assigned Classrooms — See Tournament Guide | |||
| # of Questions | TBA | 25 | 10 | 27 |
| Duration | 90 mins | 90 mins | 60 mins | 75 mins |
| % of Score | 30% | 40% | 30% | |
| Important Scoring Notes | N/A | If a team has less than 4 members, scores of 0 will be added until the team has 4 Individual Round scores. The General Test will only count for half as many points as the Focus Test combinations. | Teams are scored live, and a scoreboard will be displayed. | |
| Collaboration? | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Acceptable Answers
Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the acceptable answer formats document and common notions document for details on how their answers should be submitted. Answers not submitted in the listed formats will be graded as incorrect, even if equivalent.
Activities
After lunch, we will host optional student activities that promote recreational math and engage students in various ways. Participating students will have the opportunity to win prizes! Below are the activities we expect to run:
Estimathon
A team-based contest that combines trivia, game theory, strategy, and mathematical thinking. Teams of ~3 will face a tight time limit to work on a set of 13 Fermi-style estimation problems.
Fraudulent Math
Attention all students! Mathematics is under attack by people who claim that we need "rigor" and "logic" to justify our answers. Join us for an event of Fraudulent Math, where students will compete to come up with the most outlandish, mind bending proofs of false statements and to create impossible constructions.
Integration Bee
Compete head to head against the best integrators around! Students will face off in a tournament style bracket, solving difficult integrals involving some clever tricks, to determine who will be the champion of all integrators.
Origami
Want to bring home a cute souvenir from BMT? Come join us for a fun origami session! We will be offering multiple paper patterns and instructions, and teaching from the basics of origami. No prior craft experience is needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are calculators or other reference material allowed?
Graph paper and calculators are prohibited, but protractors, rulers, and compasses are permitted. Blank white scratch paper will be provided for all participants. All answers must be exact, reduced, and simplified. Illegible answers will not be graded. Cheating in any form will not be tolerated, and failure to comply with all rules may result in immediate and irreversible disqualification.
Can middle school students compete? What if I don't have a team?
Yes! BMT is open to any student in 12th grade or below, including those who haven't entered high school. While students are allowed to compete as individuals, we highly recommend that students compete on a team of at least 4 due to our scoring guidelines.
How are awards handled?
Awards will be physically presented to contestants at the closing ceremony.
I'm in a different timezone or non-local and can't compete live. What are my options?
There will be BMT Satellite competitions held through our partners across the globe for competitors wishing to compete in a different time zone. Additionally, we may offer an online option for remote participation.
Where can I find parking? How can I get to Berkeley?
BMT does not provide travel or parking for students — coaches should arrange their own travel logistics. There are a number of parking garages around campus, including the Telegraph-Channing Garage, Underhill Structure, Lower Hearst Structure, and the RSF Garage.
The Telegraph-Channing Garage is recommended for most people; it is cheaper than campus-owned garages (and free up to an hour) and more conveniently located than most of the garages listed.
Berkeley is also public-transport-friendly. The Downtown Berkeley BART station is next to campus, and may be a good fit for those commuting from San Francisco or the East Bay. For teams staying in Emeryville, bus line 36 will take you directly to campus. Check the AC Transit website for more options.
