Each student must work on the problems independently.
Any form of communication during the contest with other persons is forbidden (except for asking questions in written form during the first 60 minutes (see below) as well as asking to go to the toilet or similar matters).
Any usage of written information from somewhere else (e.g. notes, books, the Internet) is forbidden.
Allowed and forbidden things
Allowed are:
Empty paper (plain, ruled or squared),
Writing and drawing instruments (pens, pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners, …),
Rulers,
Protractor triangles,
Compasses,
Food and drinks,
Talismans,
Medication, glasses, hearing aids, tissues, …
Forbidden are:
Any kind of communication with other people,
Any kind of paper that is not empty,
Calculators,
Computers,
Communication devices (including smart phones and smart watches).
Time
The competition starts on Saturday, 29 August 2020, at 09:00 CEST. (Use a time zone converter if you are not sure what time zone you are in.)
The contest ends after 5 hours at 14:00 CEST.
If you write the contest at home, you have another 30 minutes for scanning or photographing your papers and uploading them here.
If you write under supervision, your supervisors will collect the papers at 14:00 CEST and have until 18:00 CEST for scanning and uploading (though the earlier, the better).
Questions
During the first 60 minutes, you can ask questions about the problems in written form.
If you write the contest at home, send your questions to question@memo2020.memo-official.org and you will receive an answer at the same email address.
If you write the contest under supervision, write your questions onto an empty page and hand them to your supervisor, who will send it to that email address for you and will give you the response when it arrives.
Questions can only be about clarifications of the problem statements (e.g. “What does the word ‘floccinaucinihilipilification’ in problem I-5 mean?”), but not about solutions (e.g. “I think I can prove that there aren’t any solutions, is that really the case or did I make a mistake somewhere?”), the best way to write your solution down (e.g. “Can I assume the Spongebob Theorem to be known or do I need to prove it?”), mathematical facts outside of the problem statements (e.g. “How is n! defined?”, unless “n!” appears in the problem statement), or entirely unrelated matters (e.g. “How long until Covid-19 is over?”).
Please be a little patient; when there are many questions, answers can take around 20 minutes
Problems
The test will consist of four problems.
The order of the problems will not depend on their difficulty; the first problem will be from algebra, the second from combinatorics, the third from geometry and the fourth from number theory.
Each problem is worth 8 points.
Solutions
Use a dark pen that is easy to read on scans or photos.
Mark each paper with your name (in case we mix up the scans so that your points certainly don’t go to another person).
Sort the pages as follows: If you have a cleanly written solution, put that first, followed by any concept paper. If you upload multiple files, make sure that when sorted alphabetically by file name, they will have this order.
Please write onto each page only things related to one problem. (For example, if you write parts of I-2 and I-3 onto the same piece of paper, then this page has to be uploaded for two correction teams, and each of them needs to read the entire page to see which parts are relevant to them, which is just needless extra effort.)
Hint: It does make your life during the contest as well as the life of the person who needs to scan it (which might be yourself or your supervisor) much easier if you write only onto one side of each page. That way you can always have all progress you already made visible on the desk in front of you rather than having to turn pages all the time. (If you want to save trees, you can still reuse the back sides after the contest.)