IOQMIndian Olympiad Qualifier in Mathematics
About IOQM
IOQM is the first stage of India’s official mathematical olympiad programme, run by the Mathematics Teachers’ Association (India) under the aegis of the National Board for Higher Mathematics and HBCSE. Introduced in the 2020–21 restructuring, it absorbed the roles of the earlier PRMO and RMO as the single nationwide qualifier.
The paper is a three-hour, 30-question test worth 100 marks in which every answer is a one- or two-digit integer bubbled on an OMR sheet — no options, no negative marking. Questions escalate from accessible to genuinely olympiad-hard, and clearing the cut-off sends students to INMO, the gateway to the IMO training pipeline.
Accepted by: Qualifies students (via class-wise and category-wise cut-offs) for the Indian National Mathematical Olympiad (INMO); the IOQM–INMO track is the only route to India’s IMO and EGMO teams
Official websiteIOQM eligibility
Classes 8–12 (Indian citizens or OCI students studying in India, per MTA(I) eligibility norms)
IOQM exam pattern
Sections
- Single mathematics paper — every answer is an integer from 00 to 99 marked on an OMR sheet
Marking scheme: None
IOQM syllabus outline
- Pre-degree college mathematics: number theory, algebra, geometry and combinatorics
- Calculus and statistics are excluded — the difficulty comes from problem-solving depth, not advanced topics
- Stage structure: IOQM → INMO → IMO Training Camp (IMOTC) → pre-departure camp → International Mathematical Olympiad
Preparing for IOQM?
Olympiads reward deep fundamentals — the same preparation that pays off later in JEE, NEET and other entrance exams. Explore every national and international olympiad, or check the official site for this year's dates and registration.