2020 award thresholds Distinction 29+, Merit 10+
Prizes and medals were not awarded this year due to the unusual circumstances
The next Maclaurin Olympiad will take place on one specific date, 18th March 2021.
Download past papers and solutions
Stretching high-attaining young people
The Maclaurin Olympiad is a follow-on round to the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge. It is a 2-hour competition consisting of six problems requiring full written solutions.
We invite around 600 qualifying students from the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge to take part in the Maclaurin Olympiad. Students who have missed the qualifying score threshold for the competition, which varies from year to year, may be entered into the competition at the discretion of their school.
Changes for 2021
Written solutions will need to be returned to us by upload by midnight 24th March, rather than sent back in the post. This will be very similar to the process for BMO1/BMO2 however we are currently working on a more efficient way for you to upload scripts, and we will communicate this with you once it is finalised. More details on this will be available from the Olympiad Handbook and we will let you know when this is available.
Students must sit the paper under exam conditions in school. If this is not possible please contact us.
Question papers will also be available to download from your Challenges Profile on 16th March.
If you order discretionary entries your Maclaurin student usernames and passwords will be set up on your Challenges Profile (or your Profile set up if you don't already have one for your centre) after discretionary entries have closed on the 14th March.
How do I take part?
The competition is open to qualifying students and those entered at the discretion of their schools.
Any qualifying candidates for the Maclaurin Olympiad with be clearly indicated in your results from the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge. Question papers will be available to download before the Olympiad date.
What happens after the Maclaurin Olympiad?
Each qualifying student receives a Certificate of Qualification and the highest-scoring participants each receive Certificates of Distinction and Merit.
The top 50 or so scorers will be awarded a book prize; the title varies from year to year.
We award medals to the top 100 scorers in the competition.
How can I prepare for the Maclaurin Olympiad?
Teachers can use past Maclaurin Olympiad papers as a source of high-quality problems to encourage their students to think mathematically and to prepare for the competition. We are delighted to be working with DrFrostMaths to help teachers use past problems in the classroom.
We also sell downloadable past papers and books which can help students to prepare for our competitions.
Can you help us?
If you or someone you know has benefited from our activities then please consider making a donation.
Find out more about volunteering with us.