Contest Prep
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October 27, 2025
Pascal, Cayley, and Fermat: Waterloo's Contests for Grades 9 to 11
Before the Euclid, there are the Pascal, Cayley, and Fermat contests. A look at what they are and how younger students can prepare.
Long before Grade 12 and the Euclid Contest, the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing at the University of Waterloo runs a set of contests for younger students. Pascal is for Grade 9, Cayley for Grade 10, and Fermat for Grade 11, and they are written in May. They are multiple-choice, designed to be enjoyable as well as challenging, and they are an excellent low-pressure introduction to mathematical problem-solving.
These contests are worth knowing about for a simple reason. They build the exact skills that pay off later, in the Euclid, in university admissions, and in math itself. A student who starts working with contest-style problems in Grade 9 has years to develop the creative, flexible thinking that contests reward, rather than meeting it for the first time under pressure in Grade 12.
The questions are different from school math in an important way. School math usually tells you what method to use; contest math asks you to figure that out. That shift is the whole point. It develops persistence, the willingness to try an approach and abandon it, and the habit of looking at a problem from more than one angle. These are skills, not talents, and they grow with practice.
For parents, the most valuable thing about these contests is that they are genuinely low stakes. There is no grade riding on them and no admissions consequence at this age. That makes them a safe place for a student to stretch, to struggle productively, and to discover that being stuck is a normal part of doing mathematics rather than a sign of failure. A student who learns that early carries it into everything that follows.
Preparation does not need to be intense. The CEMC publishes past contests, and working through a handful, talking through the problems rather than just checking answers, is enough to build real comfort. The aim at this stage is curiosity and confidence, not a high score.
If your student is in Grade 9, 10, or 11 and you would like to nurture their problem-solving through contest work, Book a free intro call and we will find a comfortable place to begin.