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 Caribou Coordinators (Teachers) → Contest Results & Rankings → Calculation of Results/Ranking
Questions & Answers:
How are contest results calculated?
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How are contest results calculated?
Answer:
A Student’s score is the sum of the points they earned from all the questions. A third of the questions are worth 3 points, another third are worth 4 points, and the last third are worth 5 points. The students are then ranked within their level (2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, 11/12) according to this total. The K/1 level is not ranked.
There is no penalty subtracted for incorrect answers, nor for leaving questions blank. It is better to guess than leave a question blank.
How are students and schools ranked in the contest and in the Caribou Cup?
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How are students and schools ranked in the contest and in the Caribou Cup?
Answer:
We do not currently perform or publish a ranking of schools because we want to encourage everyone to take part. The K/1 level is also not ranked because it is a non-competitive level where students are allowed to receive help reading questions, for example.
Contests A Student’s ranking in a contest is determined based on the number of points they achieved.
Their score is the sum of the points they earned from all the questions. A third of the questions are worth 3 points, another third are worth 4 points, and the last third are worth 5 points. Test time is no longer used to calculate contest ranking
The Caribou Cup A Student’s ranking in the Caribou Cup is determined based on their scores from the year’s contests.
Students are ranked according to the sum of their points in their top 5 (out of 6) contests. If 2 students have the same overall score, then the sums from all 6 contests are used as a tiebreaker. Test time is not used to calculate Caribou Cup ranking.
In both contests and the Caribou Cup, the ranking is done by level (2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, 11/12). For example, grades 5 and 6 are ranked together. It does not matter whether a student is really in grade 5 or in grade 6 as currently we do not collect this information.
How does a missed contest affect Cup rankings?
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How does a missed contest affect Cup rankings?
Answer:
Ranking in the Caribou Cup is determined based on a student’s best 5 out of 6 contest scores. So if a student misses one contest, then they will not be overly affected because their 5 non-zero scores will be used to determine their ranking. However, if a student has missed more than one contest, then their ranking will be negatively affected.
For more information about Caribou Cup ranking, check out the above help tree item, How are students and schools ranked in the contest and in the Caribou Cup?
Why does a student’s ranking in a contest change?
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Why does a student’s ranking in a contest change?
Answer:
During the first few days after a contest, student ranking is not set in stone. For more information, see the item Why are results only ‘preliminary’ in the few days after each contest?.
Why do some of my students have the same ranking?
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Why do some of my students have the same ranking?
Answer:
Starting May 2019 Caribou Contests removed time as a tie-breaker, meaning that a student’s Caribou Contest ranking is now based solely on the points earned for answering questions correctly.
In this way, we hope students will feel less pressure to simply give up and guess a question when it takes more time and thought to figure out the answer.
Understandably, some students and teachers prefer to have a tie-breaker and may find the old system encouraged more competition between students. If this is true for you, please know that Caribou Coordinators can see how long it took a student to complete a contest on the Manage & Print Access Codes page or in their School’s Contest Results.
Why can ranking be low even if a student does very well on the contests?
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Why can ranking be low even if a student does very well on the contests?
Answer:
This used to be common in the lower levels like grade 3/4 where many students got perfect scores on the contest. The tie-breaker when students got the same score was time.
In May 2019 we removed time as a tie-breaker to motivate students to think carefully and to not give up when a question can’t be solved right away. However, this means that there are very many students with the same rank. Especially for the younger grade levels where many students get a perfect score, getting a couple questions wrong can lead to a low world rank.
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.
Why not use time as a tie-breaker for the lower grades so that a high-ranking student gets a better prize?
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Why not use time as a tie-breaker for the lower grades so that a high-ranking student gets a better prize?
Answer:
For the lower grades, our aim is mainly to encourage students to appreciate and have fun with math. The questions are intended to be accessible to most learners at those ages. Using time as a tie-breaker would only lead to students guessing instead of thinking through the answers.
For strong students up for a challenge, it is possible to participate at a grade level higher than one’s own.
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