Skip to the content of the web site.

Canadian Team Mathematics Contest

Collage of students participating in Canadian Team Mathematics Contest

The Canadian Team Mathematics Contest (CTMC) is an exciting and challenging competition where participants work in teams to flex their mathematical problem-solving skills through fun and engaging activities. Unique to this contest, schools have the opportunity to be selected to participate at the University of Waterloo or to host the contest within their own school.

Audience

  • Teams of six secondary school students in any combination of grades.
  • At least half of the problems in the individual event portion, and many problems in the team event portion, are accessible to students in Grade 9 or 10.

Date

  • For schools participating in the University of Waterloo-hosted event, the contest is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, April 10, 2024. See the ordering deadline for the current year.
  • For schools participating within their own school, the contest can be organized on or after Thursday, April 11, 2024.
  • Contest questions and full solutions are posted online publicly in mid-June.

Format

The CTMC consists of three events:

  • Individual event: Each team member solves the same set of 10 problems independently (45 min)
  • Team event: Team members collaborate to solve a set of 25 problems (45 min)
  • Relay event: Each team splits into two groups of three to solve questions where one participant's answer is needed by a teammate to solve the next question (45 min)

There are no calculators allowed during the team event. Some calculators are permitted during the individual and relay events.

Mathematical Content

The curriculum and level of difficulty of the questions will vary. Junior participants will be able to make significant contributions, but teams without any senior participants may have difficulty completing the more challenging problems. We recommend that participants spend some time preparing for our contests by trying to solve problems or reviewing past contests.

Contest Participation

University of Waterloo-hosted Event:

  • Teams from Canadian schools can register for a lottery to participate in person or virtually in the event hosted by the CEMC.
  • Registration for the CTMC lottery will open in early November of each contest year. Please visit Our Contests: Dates and Deadlines for more information.
  • A team is comprised of six participants and one teacher. There is a limit of one team per school.
  • Visit CTMC Reference Information to learn more about what's involved in participating in the UWaterloo-hosted event.

In-School Event:

  • To access the contest materials to host your own In-School CTMC event, schools can place their order by logging into our Contest Supervisor Portal and navigating to Order Contests.
  • Instructions and contest materials will be made available on Thursday, April 11, 2024, at 9:00am EDT in the Contest Material Repository of the Contest Supervisor Portal.
  • As many teams of six may participate in the contest as desired.
  • The entire contest takes approximately three hours to complete but the events can be spread out as needed and do not even need to be run on the same day as one another.
  • The deadline for ordering contests for the In-School CTMC event is Thursday, May 16, 2024.
  • Visit CTMC Reference Information to learn more about what's involved in hosting and supervising an in-school event.

Results and Recognition

We do not collect results from In-School CTMC events but Contest Supervisors can log into our Contest Supervisor Portal to generate certificates for their participants.

Next Steps

To learn more about our contests, follow the links below:

Get in Touch

Questions? We invite you to contact us.