2
$\begingroup$

I thought it was put to prevent cheating in ongoing contests, but I am unable to figure out what utility it is of when put on questions from a contest, for which knowing answers in the present is inconsequential, is asked.

Wouldn't it be enough if OP simply gave the source of the question?

One plausible explanation is that there is a sub population of MSE users who are exclusively browsing to ask and answer exclusively contest questions. If the policy is done for them, then I think it would be better to not put entrance questions in there because the style of entrance questions vs that of contest questions (eg: Olympiads) is very different.

For instance, in most olmypiad participated by highschooler, the emphasis is on Euclidean Geometry. However in these entrance exams, this is rarely the focus. The requirement is usually more holistic. So, it would be a disservice to those who are searching for the normal idea of olympiad questions.

$\endgroup$
1
  • 14
    $\begingroup$ FWIW I would not call entrance exams "contests", but that may be due to my background with "contests" meaning mathematical problem solving events without any connections to usual school/college life. I was a bit surprised to hear that some people want to tag entrace exam questions with contest-math. I find that practice misleading, but it cannot hurt to collect more opinions. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Sep 29, 2022 at 19:48

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
2
$\begingroup$

Promoting my sentiment (see the comment under main) to an answer so that others can also express their disagreement by downvoting and/or commenting.

In my opinion math contests are the events, where participants try and show their prowess in solving math problems that is unrelated to school/college work. Phrased differently:

A math contest is primarily about bragging rights as opposed to passing a course, or getting accepted into a program.

As always, there will be grey areas. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that admission committees of the US grad schools look favorably at applicants who did well in Putnam as undergrads. Undoubtedly contests like the Oxbridge equivalent in the UK, or Miklos Schweitzer in Hungary similarly will be noticed. Yet, I'm fairly sure that in those cases it is not necessary at all for an applicant to have competed at all to be considered. Contest background is just another item on the CV. I'm sure that IMO medalists (if not all participants who qualified) can use the item when applying to colleges.

Anyway, in light of this

I move that the tag should cover the material primarily designed for problem solving events unrelated to school/college work/admissions.

I believe that the vast majority of posts tagged as contest math fall under such an umbrella. I think that this should be the scope of the tag. Furthermore,

I think that the scope of our policy on contest problems should be limited to the questions fitting the above general description of contest math.

$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ Re: "…see the comment under main…", do you mean your comment under this question, or something else? $\endgroup$
    – The Amplitwist
    Oct 3, 2022 at 14:44
  • $\begingroup$ As you say, the thing that qualifies a question for [contest-math] is not a quality of the question but rather of the context in which it used/asked. Can their design , whatever that may be, really be used to distinguish them from non-contest-math questions? $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Oct 3, 2022 at 17:42
  • $\begingroup$ A fair point @rschwieb. Conceding that context is, perhaps, the most decisive feature. Yet, the great contest questions have these strikingly elementary solutions. But not all the contest questions on our site are like that. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Oct 3, 2022 at 17:45
2
$\begingroup$

As with other tags, contest-math can be used for:

$\bullet\; $Indicating that a question is of this type (whatever that is).

$\bullet\; $Helping those who want to find such questions to do so.

$\bullet\; $Helping those who want to avoid such questions to do so.

As with other tags, those who are interested in contest-math may add or remove the tag to/from any question. If you are not the OP, then perhaps leave a comment saying that you have done this.

$\endgroup$
1
$\begingroup$

In this post I added the contest-math tag despite the question being one from that of an entrance exam but the utility of the same can be seen from the most upvoted answer there.

It caters to things:

  1. Solving with the help of options that is not really trying to explain the concept or procedure.
  2. (This might not be true always) but instead of just solving the problem, rather looking at the most efficient/best/less-time-consuming way to do the same.
  3. Also, the tag in itself tells/conveys that the question belongs to some test or olympiad or competitive-exam or that one is looking for an answer from that perspective or both.

I'm not sure if everyone would resonate with me on these but that's my perspective and in case most conform to it then we should perhaps consider editing the tag to include these details(?).

$\endgroup$
2
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Downvoting simply to express my opinion that this is NOT what contest-math is about. Please don't take that personally. I do realize that there are contests (like preliminary round of AHSME, if it is still running), where one can eliminate alternatives to a multiple choice question like this. But that is because multiple choice questions with a tight time control is one of the few alternatives for screening top entrants to a real contest when the number of participants in the first round is unmanageably high. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Oct 3, 2022 at 6:35
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @JyrkiLahtonen I think its totally fine to downvote posts on meta to express one's opinion (though I still generally don't) but the problem is on the main site where many users simply downvote (especially the answers) without any comment(s). Secondly, While writing the 2nd point even I myself realized that that might not always be the case since many simply test the aptitude via hard questions while giving ample time. But still the general spirit is to save time I guess. $\endgroup$
    – InanimateBeing
    Oct 3, 2022 at 8:25
1
$\begingroup$

Yeah the value of this tag seems dubious.

In principle any question could be asked in a contest, so it doesn't distinguish them from questions not tagged with it.

But in practice one could collect past questions from a particular exam with an expectation that the pool would heavily adopt from previous years and not be so impossibly broad.

With those two things in mind, I think an improvement would be to eliminate this general tag but allow contest-specific tags. The risk here is that this might invite someone might systematically add content for the purpose of warehousing answers to said test. This is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your view.

Finally, I guess maybe one might use the contest-math tag for questions about advice for preparing for such competitions. Personally I think the site has evolved away from answering a question like that and also already has many posts that address it. At this point I wish there was some sort of restricted tag set whose elements would persist, but not be available for adding by normal users.

Maybe also a middle-of-the-road approach: we could set up specific tags and encourage their use over [contest-math], leaving [contest-math] as a fallback to catch the remainder.

$\endgroup$
3
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ I oppose the idea of having contest-specific tags. True, it would work reasonably well with Putnam, Miklos Schweitzer and IMO. But this would introduce a proliferation of tags for national/regional/whatnot contests. I rather think that having a single contest-math tag makes it easier for the interested students to find material. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Oct 3, 2022 at 6:39
  • $\begingroup$ @JyrkiLahtonen Yes, there would need to be some control over how many tags are made to prevent too much 'proliferation'. But otherwise it seems like even, say, two dozen test-specific tags is completely reasonable because they would be useful. OTOH, forcing all such questions into a single tag almost guarantees it will not be useful, because of the range in difficulty and subject matter it will encompass. Certainly the one-tag route is the easiest to administer, and a multi-tag approach would be harder... $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Oct 3, 2022 at 13:22
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Or, perhaps, we could short-list some specific tags that will capture almost all the main contests, and encourage their use over contest-math, using the contest-math one to capture the remainder. That gives users the utility and doesn't take away the fallback. $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Oct 3, 2022 at 13:25
-2
$\begingroup$

One could also simply do away with the contest-math tag.

  1. At the end of the day, the question actually belongs (largely) to some subset from the universal set of various mathematics' topics. So those tags should be enough.
  2. The tag info says "For discussions about contest questions posted on this site. (How to treat them, how to notice them, etc.)" - But if there's an umbrella approach for these questions then having such questions without the contest-math tag, would also solve the purpose. [rschwieb's answer addressed this too].
  3. If there's no umbrella approach for them then largely the question itself becomes irrelevant. Therefore, the tag becomes irrelevant. In each question, ultimately, we're looking at solid foundations for some mathematical concept.
  4. If it's about alarming the moderators then instead of having a tag, simply reporting should do. I really don't see how a tag proves to be of use in such a case.
  5. As already mentioned, there are contests and Olympiads and entrance exams at all levels and so it might not really serve the purpose of being a good repository of such questions. Since no definition/standards have been defined while forming this tag, many users (as mentioned by OP) use it "incorrectly".

For users who watch this tag and are specifically interested in solving the various questions belonging to the different tests/olympiads/competitions, etc. it only for such users that this tag seems relevant (imo)for they'll get all sorts of questions ranging from easy to difficult (and boring to interesting).

And if we decide to retain this tag then I think to specifically address the "good repository" issue, it would be better to ask the question asker to also mention the tests/olympiads/competitions that the question belongs to though this won't improve anything unless the MSE users' themselves make a repository of all the noteworthy tests/olympiads/competitions' names that they want to see the questions from. And even in this case the apt tag would be Olympiad (which is currently a synonym tag) than contest-math which is too broad sounding (and used accordingly). [But then again rschwieb's answer raises a good point in the $3^{rd}$ para].

$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .