Caribou Help / FAQ
Please look for your question among the >200 questions in our FAQ before emailing us. Caribou aims to be 100% self-service. This helps keep our services affordable.
To use this Help Tree, choose the appropriate category and subcategories. If you are unable to find your question, use the Contact Us form located in the leaves of this tree. Thank you for your help.
Help Tree → For Parents / Students → Fairness
Questions & Answers:
There were problems during the contest that affected my students’ performance/ability to finish the contest.
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There were problems during the contest that affected my students’ performance/ability to finish the contest.
Answer:
There are many problems that can arise while a student is writing a contest. The most common are technical issues (internet down, server lagging, browser crashing, device not working, etc.).
When students are affected by these problems, their Caribou Coordinator can help them. See the What help can a Coordinator give to students during the contest? for details. Keep in mind that a student’s submitted responses are saved – if there is time remaining they can restart the browser or log back in on another device to continue writing the contest.
What happens if there was a mistake in the questions?
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What happens if there was a mistake in the questions?
Answer:
If you have found a mistake in the questions, please let us know so we can correct it. It has happened for example where there were two correct answers, in which case we would correct the results to give points for both correct answers. Or if there is no correct answer, we would give points to all students who had this question on their test.
What is considered cheating?
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What is considered cheating?
Answer:
When students sign in to start the contest, they agree to our Contest Rules. Breaking any of these rules is considered unfair participation, even if it is unintentional. For examples of unfair participation, how it is detected and the consequences, please see the page Contest Rules – What is Unfair Participation?. If a student is discovered to be cheating, their Caribou Coordinator can delete their test entry. For detailed instructions on removing a test entry, see the FAQ item How do you use the Contest Day Tools ‘Increase Test Time’ and ‘Remove Test Entry’?. If you are unsure of the appropriate action to take, please Contact Us for advice.
What help can a Coordinator give to students during the contest?
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What help can a Coordinator give to students during the contest?
Answer:
With the exception of students participating in the K/1 level, participants are expected to be able to read and understand contest questions independently. Coordinators may not help students with understanding or solving contest questions. Even minor hints, intentional or not, lead to a correlation in students’ results that can be detected by our system and may lead to their results being removed. Students with professionally-diagnosed learning disabilities may get extra time or be allowed to use accommodations such as text-to-speech software. See the Contest Rules page for more information on what is considered unfair with examples.
Coordinators can help students with logging in and any technical problems that arise.
To help avoid problems on contest days, Coordinators should follow the instructions in their Contest Coordinator Instructions for setting up the contests and verifying that access codes and names are valid and correct.
On contest days, you have three more tools at your disposal on your Coordinator Homepage under Contest Day Tools:- Shift My Contest Time Window (which allows students to start writing the contest earlier or later than the default 7:30am-3:30pm)
- Increase Test Time (which adds 5 minutes each time)
- Remove a Test Entry (which removes your student’s entry completely, allowing them to start over).
For detailed instructions on using these tools, see the FAQ item How do you use the Contest Day Tools ‘Increase Test Time’ and ‘Remove Test Entry’?.
Can students with learning disabilities get extra time?
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Can students with learning disabilities get extra time?
Answer:
We entrust these decisions to our Caribou Coordinators who can decide whether it is necessary to give students more time. Students diagnosed with motor impairment or dyslexia may need more time to complete the contest or be allowed to use assistive technologies like text-to-speech software. For information on how to do this, see the item What help can a Coordinator give to students during the contest?.
Can students use a dictionary?
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Can students use a dictionary?
Answer:
This is the type of decision that is best left to Caribou Coordinators to decide. We trust our Caribou Coordinators to maintain fairness in the contest: if the situation warrants it, they may allow a student to use a dictionary to understand a word. Please bear in mind that understanding the contest questions is part of the challenge. See the Contest Rules page for examples of what is considered unfair.
Are interactive games fair when playing against a computer?
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Are interactive games fair when playing against a computer?
Answer:
Yes, we think so.
There is an element of chance when playing against a computer in a two-person game, but overall solving these questions relies on the student’s ability to think logically.
Students can try the interactive question as many times as they would like and they do have the time: before we introduced interactive questions, students completed the contests within an average of 30 minutes.
Is it fair to group 2 grade levels together as one contest level?
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Is it fair to group 2 grade levels together as one contest level?
Answer:
Yes, as we try to have questions which could be answered by the lower of the 2 grades of each level, e.g. grade 5 for grade 5/6 contests. Most questions are about common sense, logical thinking, the ability to read questions by face value, and not to jump to early conclusions and less about school math knowledge. We also try to have questions with fewer prerequisites at the start of the school year and questions requiring more math knowledge later in the year.
Is it fair to put a game in a contest when some students might not have played it before?
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Is it fair to put a game in a contest when some students might not have played it before?
Answer:
We believe it is fair to reward students who prepare and practice. Therefore we have previous contests available and we have our Games page where students can practice games that may come up as interactive questions.
Students also have ample notice of the upcoming Game question, so they have time to become familiar with the game. The interactive game is always announced at least 2 weeks before the contest; this information is sent to all Caribou Coordinators and Subscribers as well as shared on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It can also be found on the Homepage News.
I am a student and I have information about other students participating unfairly (e.g. by using a calculator). What should I do?
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I am a student and I have information about other students participating unfairly (e.g. by using a calculator). What should I do?
Answer:
Calculators are not necessary for our contests: they should not confer a large advantage. However, this is still unfair participation and against our rules. It is best to inform the Caribou Coordinator of that student, so that they can do more to prevent this cheating. When this cheating is confirmed by the Coordinator and reported to the Caribou Team using the Contact Us Form, the student’s unfairly-obtained test results will be deleted.
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