Frequently Asked Questions

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Topics

• Participation
• Registering a school or library
• Being a contact person
• Passwords
• Payments and Financial
• Alternative times and days
• Running the contest
• After the contest
• Technical problems
• Ranking and prizes
• Student Names
• Content of Contest
• Other

Participation

1. I am doing Home Schooling. Can I enter the competition?
2. I am a home schooled student, but my local library does not want to participate. Do I have other options?
3. I do not want to bug my teacher about entering the competition. Can I do the contest at home?
4. I do not live in Canada. Can I still enter the competition?
5. How much is the Entry Fee for this Competition?
6. My school is not registered yet and I cannot find anyone at school who is willing to be the contact person. What shall I do?
7. Can students participate in later contests if they missed the first this school year?
8. I have a former gr 5 student who has moved on to a new school. I have given his new teacher/school; documentation to get involved with Caribou Math with no success. His parents are very insistent that he writes this test again. They want his son to join us this year and write the contest with his old school. I can put him under his new school's name and be the guide. How do you want me to proceed?
9. A student has the error "Login failed. This is not the same session you used to start this contest." What can I do to fix this?

Registering a school or library

1. I am a teacher/administrative assistant at a primary school/librarian at a public library. What are the consequences for me if I agree to be the contact person of the school/library?
2. I am working in a library. If our library signs up (i.e. if one of us agrees to be the contact person) how many computers would we need, i.e. how many students do you expect to come?
3. I would like to register my school, but it does not appear on the list.

Being a contact person

1. Please change my email address from ... to ... .
2. I've moved schools and am looking to register my new school. How?
3. I am no longer the contact person of our school. Please remove me from your email list.
4. I am a contact person for my school. How can I register another contact person for my school?
5. I am leaving the school during the school year. How can a colleague take over as contact?
6. I am taking over as contact person in the middle of the school year but how?
7. How do I get passwords for paid and/or free contests?
8. I am just wondering how to enter the number of participants I will have.
9. When I log into my teacher menu, the background turns white and the page formatting is strange.

Passwords

1. I need to request more passwords. Can you send me more?
2. I have already registered, but now I have more students than passwords. How do I request for more passwords?
3. I have students registered for 3/4 and 7/8 but not for 5/$i, Now I have several students that are grade 6 and it will not work with a password as it states that we are not registered for the test under 5/6.
4. Please send the new passwords to this email address: ...
5. Do I need to request new passwords for each contest or can students use the same password for each contest?
6. Will I have to make a special request for passwords for each future contest?
7. Does it matter if I do not use all the passwords?
8. Is it too late to register for a contest tomorrow?
9. I did not receive new passwords for today's contest.
10. I'm a parent, whose child did not bring home his password (or the information that it existed). Is there any way I can get certificates from his past results?
11. I am a student. I have lost my login password. My name is XXX YYY, I am in grade UUU and go to school ZZZ. Could you please send me my password?
12. I am a contact person but can not register grade 3/4 for the next contest because already a student registered and downloaded passwords. How can that be? What shall I do?

Payments and Financial

1. Which contests are still free?
2. We only now heard about the contest and want to start participating in February. Will our first contest be free?
3. The contact person does not want to purchase credits.
4. I am a parent. Our school does not want to administer further contests apart from the free one, even if we parents pay.
5. How can one pay?
6. I am a parent. When trying to pay our school was not on the list.
7. I am a teacher. In previous years we had a larger number of students participating. Our school can not pay for all of them. Does Caribou have a rebate?
8. How can I get a receipt for my payment?
9. Is there HST (tax) on the $10 cost to participate per student?
10. Is there a refund for unused passwords?
11. My PayPal account refuses to pay or accept money
12. Is the fee in Canadian Dollar? How do I convert from my currency using PayPal?

Alternative times and days

1. We are having problems with our Internet connectivity today at our School. Not sure that we will be able to complete the contest for today. Is there any possibility of an alternate date?
2. I have 2 students who are not available to write the contest during the time I have designated (I have all other students writing between 10:30 - 11:30 am) because of conflicts with their timetable. Can I set up another time between 9 am and 3:30 pm for these two students to write in our computer lab, supervised by me or must all students in one school write the contest at the same time in the day?
3. How long does the contest take to administer and does it have to be done at a specific time of day?
4. On the day of the next contest we have a clash with other activities. What could be done?

Running the contest

1. Where do I go to start the contest?
2. It would be handy to have the instructions shown at the start of the contest ahead of time so that students are familiar with the steps necessary to log in to their tests.
3. During the contest, can a student receive help?
4. Are calculators allowed for the contest?
5. Do I need to tell you at what time they will begin the test?
6. Can our students use personal laptops to write the contest?
7. Do students need to use 60 min consecutively, or can they split it up?
8. When students want to start the contest, our school can not be selected.
9. When a question had been answered and submitted and later clicked again, the previously selected option does not show. Why?
10. Can students use personal devices such as a laptop, phone, iPod or iPad and not necessarily school computers to do the contest?
11. Our students are writing at 9am. Some students can write only later, is that possible?
12. How do students register?
13. Is there a penalty for an incorrect answer or a partial reward for leaving an answer blank?

After the contest

1. Can a student find out which questions they answered correctly?
2. What are the scores of my students?
3. Do you have a method of tracking individual students to combine their October results with their November results?
4. Will there be a press release?
5. A student of our school is unable to access his contest results. He has tried several times to see his results from the November test. It always says his login is wrong. I am wondering if he typed his name wrong the first time.
6. When I check my Caribou Cup results not all contests are listed in which I took part. How is that possible?
7. (Student:) I forgot my password of the last contest. The teacher did not note it. Can you help?
8. Why are results only preliminary in the 1-2 days after each contest?
9. One of our students who participated in the contest does not show up on the results list.
10. My son/student misspelled his name today when starting the contest. Can you fix it?

Technical problems

1. My classroom does not have a computer connected to the Internet. What can I do?
2. I have registered my class, however every time I try to get the passwords either resent or new ones, the site keeps telling me the login has failed. I am on the registered list. I still cannot get the passwords.
3. What happens if the wireless signal fails?
4. I am unable to access the results for the following students: ...
5. I would like to delete my original registration information and re-register using our new school name. It does not allow me to add the new school to register myself as contact person using the same email address.
6. Around 10:30 am many of my students were unable to compete as the server was taking so long. Their time was still ticking away. Is there anything I can do in the future to avoid this? It is unfair.
7. Because of a computer crash/fire alarm/temporary power cut/dying battery/school wide network problem/... one/some students could not complete the contest. This was not their fault. What can we do?

Ranking and prizes

1. Is there a prize or trophy for the best school performance?
2. The teacher, Mr. X, was concerned about the status of his grade 7 classroom's accumulated totals, because he failed to register as the school contact for the January Caribou contest. The grade 8 teacher registered her own class and was the school contact for that particular contest. Mr. X's class did compete, however. What Mr. X would like to know is if that will affect his classroom's totals towards the year end Caribou Cup?
3. Do two classrooms (or ALL and ANY classrooms for that matter) compete as a class for the Caribou Cup, OR do they compete as an entire school within the grade range?
4. How are students ranked in the contests and in the Caribou Cup?
5. Will my students scores be combined from their first test or is each test seperate? I only ask because each test requires a new password so is it collected by their name?

Student Names

1. Can students simply use their initials as names to protect their identity?
2. I am a teacher. Do I need parental permission to have my students involved in the contests?
3. If a student who chooses to use only their initials or a pseudonym wins a prize will they have to forfeit the prize?
4. Our child had troubles logging in during the last contest. Since his name XXXX was blocked he signed in using the slightly different name YYYY. I was wondering if you could change his name in your records from YYYY back to XXXX and connect his results with his previous results so that he could participate in Caribou cup as XXXX.

Content of Contest

1. How are games integrated into the scoring system?
2. What is the purpose of the games?
3. In the games some luck is involved through randomized play of the computer. For example, in the 'Bomb Defuser' one can click on a bomb with the first attempt. How would this be a fair assessment?
4. Could students not forget the contest over the game?
5. If you cannot complete a test successfully is there the option of stopping as otherwise they could try for a long time without being successful.
6. Is using a game like Minesweeper not unfair to students who have not played it before?

Other

1. Once you have developed a Competition for other grade levels, can I enter at a level above my normal Grade level?
2. Where do I find practice contests?
3. I am concerned that a young grade 3 may not be ready for a contest catered for a grade 3/4?
4. How can I find Carl Caribou on facebook and twitter?
5. I found that the grade 3/4 test today had only 12 questions which is different from the usual 24. Was this a change since October?
6. Is there somewhere we can see how to answer the questions?

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Participation

1. I am doing Home Schooling. Can I enter the competition?
   
   Yes you can provided you are doing Grade 3-8 Math courses. Also, you would have to be supervised by an adult in the school or Municipal Library while completing the 1 hour contest.
   
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2. I am a home schooled student, but my local library does not want to participate. Do I have other options?
   
   You can ask any other public library in your area, or you can also go to any school that is registered and ask whether you can take part (see the list of registered schools).
   
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3. I do not want to bug my teacher about entering the competition. Can I do the contest at home?
   
   No. When you are doing the contest, you will need to be supervised by a staff member at school e.g. a teacher. The teacher does not have to be your teacher, or a mathematics teacher.
   
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4. I do not live in Canada. Can I still enter the competition?
   
   No. We are only extending our contest to all of Canada this time.
   
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5. How much is the Entry Fee for this Competition?
   
   There is no fee, the participation is completely free.
   
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6. My school is not registered yet and I cannot find anyone at school who is willing to be the contact person. What shall I do?
   
   If you cannot find anyone being the contact person at your school then you may ask a librarian of your local library whether (s)he would register to be a contact person. But you should ask at least some days before the contest to give the library time to register.
   
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7. Can students participate in later contests if they missed the first this school year?
   
   Of course they can, each contest is separate. They only miss out on points they may have earned towards the Caribou Cup at the end of the year when prizes are awarded according to the total number of marks obtained in all contests in the whole school year.
   
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8. I have a former gr 5 student who has moved on to a new school. I have given his new teacher/school; documentation to get involved with Caribou Math with no success. His parents are very insistent that he writes this test again. They want his son to join us this year and write the contest with his old school. I can put him under his new school's name and be the guide. How do you want me to proceed?
   
   If the other school does not mind appearing in the list of registered schools then that is fine. Sometimes schools do not want to be seen to take part in the contest because they fear parents could ask for better preparation,....Therefore the new school might not like if you register as a contact person for that other school. But why not allowing the student to write the contest in his old school. We are happy with any solution which increases participation and ensures fair contests, i.e. that students are supervised when writing the contest.
   
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9. A student has the error "Login failed. This is not the same session you used to start this contest." What can I do to fix this?
   
   First, login as contact person.
   Under "Other Options" is a bullet, "Fix Session Login Issue." Click it. A list of all your students will appear.
   Click ONLY on the student(s) having the login issue. This will resolve the issue and the student can login again.
   
   This problem occurs when a computer crashes, or a student tries to login using the same name and password as another student. This extra safety measure became necessary to prevent identity theft.
   Any students who have this error will be given 5 minutes of extra time to finish writing the contest.
   
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Registering a school or library

1. I am a teacher/administrative assistant at a primary school/librarian at a public library. What are the consequences for me if I agree to be the contact person of the school/library?
   
   It would mean that at the time of the contest you or some other adult (non-parent) would be present in a room with computers where contestants can do the contest online and that you hand out a password to any student of the right age group who wants to take the contest. Passwords are emailed to you when you register online. That is all. Anything else, like marking is done automatically. Students have at most 60 min to complete the test.
   
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2. I am working in a library. If our library signs up (i.e. if one of us agrees to be the contact person) how many computers would we need, i.e. how many students do you expect to come?
   
   The library would only have to do something in the rare event that
   
   • a home schooling child would want to do the contest at the library, or
   • a child of this age group attending a local public school would not be able to convince one of the teachers to be a contact person.
   
   If any students would like to take the contest in the library, then they would have to ask you before, so you will know beforehand how many will be participating. In any case it will probably be just one or at most very few students.
   
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3. I would like to register my school, but it does not appear on the list.
   
   You can add your school when you register as a contact person.
   
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Being a contact person

1. Please change my email address from ... to ... .
   
   On the home page click "School Login" and use your old email address and password to log in as contact person. On the opening page click "Edit My Contact Person Account". On the new page scroll down and next to "Email" type in you new email address and repeat it underneath under "Confirm Your Email". Click "Submit" at the bottom of the page.
   
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2. I've moved schools and am looking to register my new school. How?
   
   You login as usual and click near the bottom of the page 'Edit My Account'. From here, find your new school in the drop down list, select it and hit Save Changes. You will then be the contact person for your new school, and can register for contests etc for that school.
   
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3. I am no longer the contact person of our school. Please remove me from your email list.
   
   We send emails to all contact persons only once or twice per year, for example, when the new school year starts. Maybe in a year you want to be contact person again. But if you really do not want to be sent any email ever, then log in as contact, with your current email address and password, click at the bottom 'Edit My Account' and change in your email @ to (at) and use this new (wrong) email address with (at) to log in in future but you will not receive an email with this wrong email address.
   
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4. I am a contact person for my school. How can I register another contact person for my school?
   
   The other person simply registers like you registered. It does not matter if a school has one, two or more contact persons. All that matters is that for one contest (one age group on one day) there can only be one contact person per school to register for that contest. For example, one teacher can be registered for the grade 3/4 tests in October and a different teacher from the same school can be registered for the grade 3/4 tests in November of the same school year. However, you cannot have two teachers from the same school registered as the contact persons for the grade 3/4 tests on the same contest day.
   
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5. I am leaving the school during the school year. How can a colleague take over as contact?
   
   For this school year your colleague needs to use the same contact account for several reasons:
   
   Your colleague needs
   • to be able to inspect old results to answer students questions
   • to correct mistyped names of students in contests that you administered this year so that the students results add up properly at the end of the year
   • to use registrations for the remaining contests of this year which you may have already made (your colleague could not re-register the school for remaining contests this school year if you have already registered your school because we do not allow two contacts to register for the same grade and the same school on the same contest day).
   Therefore please login as contact with your current email address and password and click 'Edit My Contact Person Account' and change the email to your colleague who takes over and perhaps change the password and pass that information on. Your colleague will get an email with a web page to load and thus to activate the new email address. If that does not happen then the new email address was wrong and you have to check the new email address. The change of email address is necessary so that your colleague gets future emails related to the Caribou Cup of this school year.
   
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6. I am taking over as contact person in the middle of the school year but how?
   
   For reasons explained in the answer to the previous question the contact account should continue to be used. The previous contact person needs to log in, change the emmail address to yours and perhaps change the password and pass this information on to you. If this is not possible because the previous contact is not reachable anymore, then please contact us.
   
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7. How do I get passwords for paid and/or free contests?
   
   For each contest (paid and free) you have to register like in previous years:
   • login as a teacher
   • scroll down to click a link "Request/Resend/Display/Request More Passwords for Upcoming Grade X Contests"
   • in the upcoming table click "Register" in the line of the contest day you want to register
   If the contest is free request as many passwords as you like.
   If the contest needs a charge then you get automatically as many passwords as credits have been purchased.
   
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8. I am just wondering how to enter the number of participants I will have.
   
   Apart from registering yourself as a contact person you then have to register for each contest your students want to participate in. When you log in as contact person you get to https://www.brocku.ca/caribou/contacts/ then click, for example, "Show/Hide Upcoming Grade 5/6 Contests". When you then click "Register" you are asked how many students shall participate.
   
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9. When I log into my teacher menu, the background turns white and the page formatting is strange.
   
   If you are using Internet Explorer, there may be a yellow bar that says "Only secure content is displayed." If you see it, click the "Show All Content" button. Otherwise, if there is no yellow bar or you are not using Internet Explorer, try hitting ctrl+f5 on the page. This will refresh the page, and grab the page anew from our servers. If neither helps, contact your school's IT before phoning us, as the issue is more likely to be local to your computer.
   
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Passwords

1. I need to request more passwords. Can you send me more?
   
   You can order more yourself online. Just log in as contact person, look for the contest you need more passwords for and order more.
   
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2. I have already registered, but now I have more students than passwords. How do I request for more passwords?
   
   On the left menu of the Caribou home page click 'Request Passwords' and log in with your contact details. Choose the contest for which you need more passwords and click to receive more.
   
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3. I have students registered for 3/4 and 7/8 but not for 5/$i, Now I have several students that are grade 6 and it will not work with a password as it states that we are not registered for the test under 5/6.
   
   Passwords are only valid for the grade of the contest they were received for. You need to register for grade 5/6 to get passwords that are valid for grade 5/6.
   
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4. Please send the new passwords to this email address: ...
   
   The way to do it is that the contact person for the contest has to log into the web-page as contact person, change the email address and then order more passwords. These will be sent to the new email address.
   
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5. Do I need to request new passwords for each contest or can students use the same password for each contest?
   
   Yes, you have to register for each contest and specify how many passwords you need. Each password is valid for only one contest, i.e. one grade level and one day.
   
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6. Will I have to make a special request for passwords for each future contest?
   
   Yes. The number of participants usually varies from contest to contest, or schools like to take part only in some contests and others not.
   
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7. Does it matter if I do not use all the passwords?
   
   No.
   
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8. Is it too late to register for a contest tomorrow?
   
   It is not too late. You could even register on the contest day.
   
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9. I did not receive new passwords for today's contest.
   
   Did you register for this contest? You have to register for each contest separately.
   
   Please check your email address. If it is wrong or has been changed, you can change the email address to be used for sending passwords (and to log in) online after clicking on the left of the home page 'School Login' typing the email address (which you used to register) and your passwords. On the bottom of the upcoming page is the link 'Edit My Account'. After clicking it you can change your email address if it has been changed.
   
   Check that your spam filter is not stopping our email. Sometimes spam filters look for words, like 'password' and block such emails. In that case you can change the email address and have passwords re-sent by clicking 'Resend Passwords'.
   
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10. I'm a parent, whose child did not bring home his password (or the information that it existed). Is there any way I can get certificates from his past results?
    
    The teacher (contact person of the school) who administered the contest has access to all passwords and results.
    
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11. I am a student. I have lost my login password. My name is XXX YYY, I am in grade UUU and go to school ZZZ. Could you please send me my password?
    
    Please ask the teacher who gave you the password and who can look all passwords up on the internet where the passwords were ordered.
    
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12. I am a contact person but can not register grade 3/4 for the next contest because already a student registered and downloaded passwords. How can that be? What shall I do?
    
    That student registered as a contact person for your school. To verify that the contact person is a teacher an email is sent to the school email address asking to verify that the applicant is a teacher. If we do not get feedback then we can not know that something goes wrong.
    
    Once a contact person from a school registers for a contest (i.e. one age group on one contest day) then other contact persons should not be able to register for this age group too because this would open the door for misuse and confusion.
    
    To summarize, we have to rely on the school email address in our database being correct and that automatically sent emails about new contact persons are replied by the school if the contact person is not a teacher.
    
    We will delete the student contact registration and disable the passwords that were sent to the student. You then can register your class as normal.
    
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Payments and Financial

1. Which contests are still free?
   
   All mathematics contests we know of offer one paid contest per year per age group. We offer one free contest per year per age group which is the October contest. In addition all contests for grade 3/4 throughout the year are free.
   
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2. We only now heard about the contest and want to start participating in February. Will our first contest be free?
   
   No, only the October contest is free unless your students are in grade 3/4 then all contests are free.
   
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3. The contact person does not want to purchase credits.
   
   The contact person can log in and change the default setting and allow other people to pay assuming the contact person is willing to administer further contests.
   
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4. I am a parent. Our school does not want to administer further contests apart from the free one, even if we parents pay.
   
   Maybe you can talk to the teacher and ask what the reason is and help to overcome the problem(s). For example, if the problem is the lack of computer lab time: some schools run the Caribou Contest at 7:30am before school.
   
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5. How can one pay?
   
   There are several ways to pay.
   The contact person can pay from a PayPal account, with a credit card and can send one or more cheques. The contact person also can enable other people to pay with their PayPal account or with a credit card. Allowing others to pay is suitable if funding comes from fund raising or a sponsor or from another organization.
   
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6. I am a parent. When trying to pay our school was not on the list.
   
   Before someone can pay for password credits a contact person must enable others to pay for a specific grade. This arrangement protects the teacher because if the teacher does not want to administer further projects and does not enable others to pay then parents can not simple buy password credits and require the school to run the contests.
   
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7. I am a teacher. In previous years we had a larger number of students participating. Our school can not pay for all of them. Does Caribou have a rebate?
   
   As the system is set up now (2012) there is no automatic rebate. Here are a few suggestions.
   • On your contact login page did you enable parents to pay? At least the parents we spoke to would be happy to pay and find the fee very reasonable. Several parents said they would be happy to sponsore another child from the same school if that would help. This is possible, parents can pay any multiple of $10 and the school would automatically receive so many password credits. The contact person is sent an email about how many password credits were purchased by whom.
   • Can the school pay the registration of parents who can not afford the fee?
   • If school funds are not enough, can the school pay 50% towards the registration of parents who can not afford it? Then parents could provide a $5 cheque and you would collect them, sent them in and get 1/2 of the needed credits and the other half the school would purchase online through you.
   If none of these work, then please contact us and describe the situation.
   
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8. How can I get a receipt for my payment?
   
   After payment is made, PayPal displays the receipt which you can then print for your records.
   
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9. Is there HST (tax) on the $10 cost to participate per student?
   
   No, CAD 10 flat. This covers all fees to PayPal and taxes.
   
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10. Is there a refund for unused passwords?
    
    Sorry, no, for the following reasons:
    • Each transaction costs a fixed fee + a proportional fee to PayPal which would be lost another time.
    • It is normal that among 10 children, one gets sick, one changes his mind, or other unforseen events prevent another student from participating. We do not have the manpower to find out the payers paypal account and reimburse nearly all the schools for one or two credits. The cost to hire someone doing this would increase the fee drastically.
    As a suggestion: ask another student to participate instead. Also, the credits are valid for the whole school year. Please ask other students to participate (for free) using the certificates you already purchased.
    
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11. My PayPal account refuses to pay or accept money
    
    This is not an issue of Caribou. But users reported that re-opening the PayPal account fixed the problem. Please try that.
    
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12. Is the fee in Canadian Dollar? How do I convert from my currency using PayPal?
    
    Yes the fee is in CAD (Canadian Dollar). The conversion is done automatically when using PayPal.
    
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Alternative times and days

1. We are having problems with our Internet connectivity today at our School. Not sure that we will be able to complete the contest for today. Is there any possibility of an alternate date?
   
   We are sorry, but we cannot run it on an alternate date because tonight will already run the evaluation, ranking,.. as promised to all participating students, we cannot have them waiting and answering their emails why it got postponed. In the worst case, could you phone a neighbouring school or library or some other place to let your students take the contest? You have till 3:30pm local time to start the contest on any computer, although it should be invigilated so that students do not get unfair help.
   
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2. I have 2 students who are not available to write the contest during the time I have designated (I have all other students writing between 10:30 - 11:30 am) because of conflicts with their timetable. Can I set up another time between 9 am and 3:30 pm for these two students to write in our computer lab, supervised by me or must all students in one school write the contest at the same time in the day?
   
   The two students can write at any time between 7:30am - 3:30pm. Hopefully there is not much information exchange between students writing the contest earlier and later. If possible schedule students with lower grades before students of higher grades.
   
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3. How long does the contest take to administer and does it have to be done at a specific time of day?
   
   When a student starts a contest then (s)he has 60 min to complete it. The contest can be started anytime during the hours of 7:30am to 3:30 pm. If you have a computer for each contestant then you need to be present only for 5 minutes setup and 60 minutes contest.
   
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4. On the day of the next contest we have a clash with other activities. What could be done?
   
   To minimize such occurances, we publish the dates of all contests at the beginning of the school year. Unfortunately we can not change the contest days because many schools already did bookings of computer labs and we can not have your school take part later because all the statistics, rankings, etc are automatically calculated immediately upon the contest's closing.
   
   But, if you are on a trip, your students may find an Internet cafe or a public library where they can sit for an hour.
   
   If not, you could log into your Teacher Login and click 'Edit My Contact Person Account' and change the time zone either to 'Newfoundland Time' if you want to do the test before your activity or to 'Pacific Time' if you want to do the contest after your activity. The contest can be started between 7:30am and 3:30pm in the time zone you pick. BUT:
   • Please do not forget to change the time zone back after your contest.
   • Be aware that the new time zone is then valid for all contests, i.e. age groups at your school, so check before with all other contact persons of your school that everyone knows the new time window.
   
   
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Running the contest

1. Where do I go to start the contest?
   
   On the top of the Caribou home page one can click 'Start the Contest' in English and French.
   
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2. It would be handy to have the instructions shown at the start of the contest ahead of time so that students are familiar with the steps necessary to log in to their tests.
   
   Here are the instructions:
   
   1. Enter your 6 character password
   2. Choose your school from the drop down box
   3. Enter your first name
   4. Enter you last name
   5. Choose the computer number on your left from the drop down box
   6. hoose your computer number from the drop down box (or leave as is)
   7. Choose the computer number on your right from the drop down box
   8. Read and click 'I agree' to the rules
   9. Click 'Submit' Button
   
   
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3. During the contest, can a student receive help?
   
   No, not during the contest. Hopefully they can get all the help they need for preparing for the contest, but not during the contest. It is recommended for students to use paper and pencil to solve problems during the contest.
   
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4. Are calculators allowed for the contest?
   
   No, calculators are not allowed. We encourage the use of pencil and papernot only for questions in geometry but most of the questions.
   
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5. Do I need to tell you at what time they will begin the test?
   
   No.
   
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6. Can our students use personal laptops to write the contest?
   
   Yes. What matters is that they will write the contest at school, then their IP address will have the same domain name as the other school PCs. The other issue would be to assign to each laptop/student a number so that students can input which number they have and which number the students sitting to their left and right have.
   
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7. Do students need to use 60 min consecutively, or can they split it up?
   
   Students can (of course) not split it up, otherwise they could look at the questions first and organize the solutions before trying again. They can use less than 60 min, if they want.
   
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8. When students want to start the contest, our school can not be selected.
   
   Then your school did not register for this contest. Here is a checklist:
   • Did the contact person register for the right school? Many school names look very similar. Make sure that the contact person and the students use exactly the same school name.
   • Did the contact person register for exactly this contest? Each contest has its own passwords. Having registered once for the first contest in the year does not mean that one is registered for the whole year.
   Registration can still be done on the contest day and passwords are sent within seconds.
   
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9. When a question had been answered and submitted and later clicked again, the previously selected option does not show. Why?
   
   To make the contest more fair and make collaboration harder we randomize the order of questions. If clicking already answered questions would show the previously selected option then students could at the end of the time quickly click through all questions and show the solutions to each other.
   
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10. Can students use personal devices such as a laptop, phone, iPod or iPad and not necessarily school computers to do the contest?
    
    Yes they can, BUT:
    
    • They must write the contest at school and connect to the school WiFi (to get the school domain in the IP address).
    • As personal devices do not have a number, the teacher should then assign a number to each student which they can input together with the number of the neighbouring students.
    • Students must be supervised when doing the contest. This means, for example, that students do not have access to spare passwords to try contests with their i-pod later in a break.
    • Using an iPod is cumbersome one easily miss-selects an option. A laptop or iPad is more suitable.
    • Using an iPod it is harder for the teacher to prevent mutual communication between students (there are several ways for that if two students have an iPod).
    • Make sure they do not run out of battery, better they are operated with a power adapter.
    • iPods, iPads and laptops with a touchpad: when moving the cursor with the touchpad mouse this often generates unwanted 'Enter' which may submit something students are not aware of and then wonder what happened. We did what we could to avoid unintended 'End of Test' so it should be ok, but still, these devices may be tricky to handle.
    
    
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11. Our students are writing at 9am. Some students can write only later, is that possible?
    
    Students can start the contest at any time between 7:30am and 3:30pm. One only should try that students who write the contest earlier do not to talk about the contest to students of the same age group who write the contest later.
    
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12. How do students register?
    
    Students do not register. Contact persons register for future contests when they log into their account and specify the number of passwords they require, one for each student to participate. Then on a contest day, the student clicks on the link 'Start the Contest in English/French' and they carefully type in their name, password etc... in the appropriate fields.
    
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13. Is there a penalty for an incorrect answer or a partial reward for leaving an answer blank?
    
    No. Incorrect answers and blank answers get both zero points.
    
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After the contest

1. Can a student find out which questions they answered correctly?
   
   At the end of the contest day (after 4:30pm Pacific Time) a student can click 'Check Your Results' on the Caribou home page and enter his/her password and can display and print certificates of participation and of the rank they achieved. Underneath one can see which questions were solved correctly and which not.
   
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2. What are the scores of my students?
   
   You should be able to see the results for your school in the contact page: http://www.brocku.ca/caribou/contacts/contact_index.php. From there you can see 'Your school results', and then click for each individual result.
   
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3. Do you have a method of tracking individual students to combine their October results with their November results?
   
   You can inspect the result for each student in each contest but we have no software so far to display progress over time of individual students.
   
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4. Will there be a press release?
   
   We usually have a press release at the start of a school year.
   
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5. A student of our school is unable to access his contest results. He has tried several times to see his results from the November test. It always says his login is wrong. I am wondering if he typed his name wrong the first time.
   
   As a contact person you can check on the performance of your students in a contest and you can see which name they used. You then can even correct their spelling, for example, to print certificates with the right name.
   
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6. When I check my Caribou Cup results not all contests are listed in which I took part. How is that possible?
   
   You must have used different names in the contests. Already one changed letter would lead to a different name. Please ask your teacher who handed out passwords to change the names you used in the contests to make them all equal.
   
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7. (Student:) I forgot my password of the last contest. The teacher did not note it. Can you help?
   
   Your teacher can look at the contest results of all the students of your school and can also see your password. Please ask your teacher.
   
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8. Why are results only preliminary in the 1-2 days after each contest?
   
   There are several reasons why the statistics and ranking need to be corrected after the contest.
   • Sometimes only the next day a teacher finds out that a student wrote the contest in a lower grade level and that his results need to be deleted.
   • It has happened that a question had another correct option and that students who picked that other option also needed to get full marks for that question.
   • On another occasion a teacher participated in the contest just to try it out, not realizing that he would turn up in the statistics, so his entry had to be deleted.
   • Through special statistical tests we have indicators whether 2 students collaborated. Very rarely this leads to the deletion of the students entry.
   
   
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9. One of our students who participated in the contest does not show up on the results list.
   
   Please see answer of question 5 under this topic.
   
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10. My son/student misspelled his name today when starting the contest. Can you fix it?
    
    The contact person of your son (i.e. the teacher running the contest) can do this online after login in as contact person, scrolling down and clicking "Your Previous Grade */* Contests" and then "Edit names".
    
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Technical problems

1. My classroom does not have a computer connected to the Internet. What can I do?
   
   Your school surely has computers in the school library or has a computer lab. Please talk to your teacher or Principal to get a solution to this problem.
   
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2. I have registered my class, however every time I try to get the passwords either resent or new ones, the site keeps telling me the login has failed. I am on the registered list. I still cannot get the passwords.
   
   The login is failing because the information you are entering on the form does not match the information we have in the database. Your email address could have been entered wrong when you originally registered, or the test you selected in the drop down box isn't the same one you originally registered for. If you are still having problems, we are happy to help, please send an email to get it resolved.
   
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3. What happens if the wireless signal fails?
   
   You can re-start the computer and students can again load the web page, re-start the contest and continue, they do not have to re-do the questions that are already answered. The only thing lost is the time for restarting or getting a connection again. This time is lost from the 60 min that a student has.
   
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4. I am unable to access the results for the following students: ...
   
   The reason is that at the start of the contest the students typed their name differently from the way you typed them. You can see the names typed in by your students when you login as contact person by clicking 'School Login' and then on your contact page click 'Edit Names' in the row of the contest from which you want to print results.
   
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5. I would like to delete my original registration information and re-register using our new school name. It does not allow me to add the new school to register myself as contact person using the same email address.
   
   That is true. You need to choose a different email address, or you ask us to delete your previous registration.
   
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6. Around 10:30 am many of my students were unable to compete as the server was taking so long. Their time was still ticking away. Is there anything I can do in the future to avoid this? It is unfair.
   
   You are right it is not fair if networks breaks down or other reasons cause delays. From our end, we did not notice any slow response times of our server. There were also no other complaints from the roughly 2000 participants of today by now. It looks very much as if the service provider of your school was slow, but we can not know about that and I do not see a way how to accomodate this from our end. We will continue monitoring our servers and definitely listen to any similar complaints but there have none so far.
   
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7. Because of a computer crash/fire alarm/temporary power cut/dying battery/school wide network problem/... one/some students could not complete the contest. This was not their fault. What can we do?
   
   If the computer crashes and it is possible to restart the computer then the student simply re-starts the computer, logs in with the same name and password and continues the contest.
   
   If one can not re-start the same computer but can start a different computer at the same school then the contact person must login under 'School Login' and on the Teacher Menu page click 'Fix Session Login Issue'. (This extra step from the contact person is necessary to avoid someone being able to hijack a students session if they happen to know the students password.)
   
   If the student can not restart at another computer at the school within the 60 min contest time (for example, due to a fire alarm that took longer or a power cut) but before the school closes, i.e. before 3:30pm local time, then the contact person can login like above and click 'Remove A Test Entry' and select that student's entry. This will clear completely the previous entry and the student can re-do the whole contest with all questions under the same name as before and using the same password as before.
   
   If all of the above is not possible before 3:30 pm local time then nothing can be done.
   
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Ranking and prizes

1. Is there a prize or trophy for the best school performance?
   
   We will not perform a ranking of schools to encourage everyone to take part, not only the best.
   
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2. The teacher, Mr. X, was concerned about the status of his grade 7 classroom's accumulated totals, because he failed to register as the school contact for the January Caribou contest. The grade 8 teacher registered her own class and was the school contact for that particular contest. Mr. X's class did compete, however. What Mr. X would like to know is if that will affect his classroom's totals towards the year end Caribou Cup?
   
   There are no classrooms totals. Points are added up for each individual child. "individual" means: same school name and same student name used when starting a contest. It does not matter whether for one contest teacher A was the contact (and handed out passwords to students of all the different classrooms running the contests at possibly different hours but without communication in-between) and for another contest teacher B was the contact and handed out passwords (to all students of all classrooms). The children only need to make sure that they used exactly the same name with the same spelling in each contest. If they miss-typed their name in a contest then the contact person for that contest can change the name online in their teacher menu when inspecting the results of their students in that contest. In so far it is easier if there is only one contact person for each age group at a school who then has access to all contests and can make sure that all students used the same spelling in each contest.
   
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3. Do two classrooms (or ALL and ANY classrooms for that matter) compete as a class for the Caribou Cup, OR do they compete as an entire school within the grade range?
   
   Each child competes individually but on the certificate that it can download and print it also says how the child ranked within the school, within the school board, within the province and within the country. We do not compare classrooms, schools or provinces. For example, it would be unfair to compare schools for gifted kids with other schools.
   
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4. How are students ranked in the contests and in the Caribou Cup?
   
   In contests, the students with a higher score are ranked higher. In the event of a tie, the student with a lower test time will rank higher.
   In the Caribou Cup, all contests which a student wrote during the school year are summed together to create one final total score and total time. Students are otherwise ranked in the same way. Students with higher total scores rank higher, and in the event of a tie, the student with the lowest total time will rank higher.
   
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5. Will my students scores be combined from their first test or is each test seperate? I only ask because each test requires a new password so is it collected by their name?
   
   Each contest is ranked separately. But prizes are given in the Caribou Cup. For that marks are collected at the end of year where students are identified by school, name and grade.
   
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Student Names

1. Can students simply use their initials as names to protect their identity?
   
   In principle they can use initials but there are a number of problems associated with this so we recommend to use the full name. Problems are:
   • The main problem is for the contact person to ensure that all names at the school are different. This is harder than it looks. For example, for 100 students there are 100*99/2 so 4950 pairing to check :-). This is needed because each student can participate only once in each contest.
   • When at the end of year we send out prizes, the prizes will be sent to schools to the name used in the contests. This gives a high risk that these letters get lost or never reach the student. The student may also get problems at the bank when handing in a cheque written to a name consisting of initials or an pseudonym.
   • When a student ranks among the top 50 in his/her age group in the country then the name used on the results page is the name used in the contest so the student could not tell their granny or friends about it because initials, alias names on the top 50 list could be anyone. This is surely discouraging for the child.
   • If the student wants to print a certificate with the real name then this is possible but it requires to change the name on the computer before printing.
   • When students log in then they may mistype their name in the excitement.The shorter the used name is, for example, when using initials, the more likely it is that a mistyped name is equal another used short name which will create confusion because each student can take part only once in a contest.
   
   
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2. I am a teacher. Do I need parental permission to have my students involved in the contests?
   
   We do not see any potential for harm to the students by taking part. If you want, you could ask parents whether their children should use an initial for the first name or for the last name but that is not without problems, please see the other FAQ.
   
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3. If a student who chooses to use only their initials or a pseudonym wins a prize will they have to forfeit the prize?
   
   No. They surely get and keep their prize. The problem is that the child may not receive the prize that is sent to the name used in the contest at the school address if this name consists of initials. The student may also get problems at the bank when handing in a cheque written to a name consisting of initials.
   
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4. Our child had troubles logging in during the last contest. Since his name XXXX was blocked he signed in using the slightly different name YYYY. I was wondering if you could change his name in your records from YYYY back to XXXX and connect his results with his previous results so that he could participate in Caribou cup as XXXX.
   
   Your child's teacher can change names in the records of his/her students after login in as contact person as usual and then under 'Previous Contests' for that contest click 'Edit Names'. They should change in the invalid record the name XXXX to '   ' and in the valid record the name YYYY to XXXX.
   About troubles with loging in: Your child (or a classmate) had already logged in under the name XXXX probably without being aware of it which is the reason that he could not start the contest again under the same name.
   
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Content of Contest

1. How are games integrated into the scoring system?
   
   The student gets full marks for the question when winning against the computer.
   
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2. What is the purpose of the games?
   
   The main purpose is for children to have fun and train logical thinking and to providing some enrichment to the contests, that written tests can not.
   
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3. In the games some luck is involved through randomized play of the computer. For example, in the 'Bomb Defuser' one can click on a bomb with the first attempt. How would this be a fair assessment?
   
   Children can try as often as they want and they have time. One click and re-starting the game costs 2-3 sec and one can not always hit a bomb in the first try. As soon as they won, they are told to click submit and then they get full marks. If someone is good in the logic of the game then (s)he will finish this quickly in less time than solving other 5 point questions, if not, they can finish it in much more time which then will be missing for other questions. On the other hand, before introducing interactive questions, the average use of time is about 30 min out of 60 min so plenty of time to try many times and to learn from failed attempts.
   
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4. Could students not forget the contest over the game?
   
   The interactive question comes always last. When solved correctly they can not be re-tried. The interactive question contains a warning to be aware of the passing time.
   
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5. If you cannot complete a test successfully is there the option of stopping as otherwise they could try for a long time without being successful.
   
   If you mean with 'test' the interactive question, then of course one can simply stop trying and do a different question. If you mean the whole contest then, if someone would forget the world and play and play and play... then when the 60 min are up, the marks of all correctly answered questions will be counted. In order for students not to forget the other questions by being sucked into the game, the interactive question is always last even though all other questions are randomized in their order.
   
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6. Is using a game like Minesweeper not unfair to students who have not played it before?
   
   In our contests we want to reward students who practise. Therefore we have previous contests online and we have our game page (the link "GAMES" on the top of the home page) which shows games that can come up as interactive questions. We had informed all contact persons at the start of the school year about interactive questions and our games site.
   
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Other

1. Once you have developed a Competition for other grade levels, can I enter at a level above my normal Grade level?
   
   Yes, you can. But at the end of the school year in the Caribou Cup only one level counts. Given that none of the students had a perfect score so far, we recommend to stick to your grade level.
   
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2. Where do I find practice contests?
   
   On the left of the Caribou home page click 'Practice questions'. We also have links to other contest home pages with practice questions, for example, the ELMACON contest web page.
   
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3. I am concerned that a young grade 3 may not be ready for a contest catered for a grade 3/4?
   
   Have a look at the latest contests by clicking 'Practice Tests' grade 3/4. But whether you find the questions hard or not for your students, the questions are the same for all students so others find it surely challenging too. What we find important are to experience the fun and excitement in solving math puzzles which teachers have reported to increase interest in mathematics and therefore should be helpful for the mathematics teacher.
   
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4. How can I find Carl Caribou on facebook and twitter?
   
   There are links in the top right corner of the Caribou home page.
   
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5. I found that the grade 3/4 test today had only 12 questions which is different from the usual 24. Was this a change since October?
   
   Yes, this is a change from October. We were adjusting the number of questions and tried to make them a little easier because the average number of points in the grade 3/4 contest in October is rather low. The main purpose of the grade 3/4 contest is to get children interested and we do not want to put them off by too hard and too many questions. Also, our diagrams on statistics of the contests show that grade 3/4 children use much less time than the 60min they could use. 12 questions in this short time they actually use gives a lot to think about. Maybe, having fewer questions helps the teacher to ask students to think a little longer about each question and not to guess only.
   
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6. Is there somewhere we can see how to answer the questions?
   
   We have solutions to some questions recorded and accessible under the link Video Solutions on the left of the home page. Some other questions have solutions on facebook. For that click the f-symbol in the upper right corner of the page. Otherwise, what one can do is to take a practice test with only the questions one is interested in and try all options until one finds the right option.
   
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