Interested

students at each school are selected to participate in the local competition

are rigorous and usually last for about three hours. Both local and state

competitions consist of a sprint round where students have 40 minutes

to solve 30 problems without the use of a calculator, the target round

which consists of eight, multi-step problems with only 30 minutes to solve

and the team round where students work together to solve 10 problems in

20 minutes.

The national

competition also encompasses a countdown round which is a fast-paced,

oral competition where top scoring individuals compete against each other

and the clock to solve problems and the masters round where top scoring

students prepare an oral presentation on a specific topic and present

it to a panel of judges.