Kangourou sans Frontières AKSF

The international association behind Math Kangaroo — which sets far less than most people assume.

Fast facts

Organiser
Association Kangourou Sans Frontières source
Country
International (member countries run their own contests) source
Tier
International body source
Age limit
Under 19 source
Format
Multiple choice source
Rounds
1 source
When
Third Thursday of March source

Is this for my child?

Six levels by approximate age: Pre-Ecolier (6-8), Ecolier (9-10), Benjamin (11-12), Cadet (13-14), Junior (15-16), Student (17-19). Each member country maps these onto its own class levels, so the grade a level corresponds to varies by country. source

What to know

There is no single "Math Kangaroo format"

This is the most widely repeated mistake about Kangaroo. AKSF's regulations fix only four things: the date, one multiple-choice paper with five options per question, increasing difficulty, and six age levels. They say nothing about how many questions, how long you get, or how it is marked — the words 'minute', 'hour', 'duration', 'score', 'penalty' and 'blank' do not appear anywhere in the document. Members may even use fewer questions, borrow questions from other levels, or substitute up to five of their own. So 'Kangaroo is 75 minutes' is a fact about a country, not about Kangaroo. Check your national organizer's rules.

Even the date has national slack

The third-Thursday-of-March date cannot be brought forward under any circumstances, but it may be postponed for organizational reasons in a given country.

Widely-quoted figures we could not verify

The '6 million students' figure attached to Kangaroo across the internet is not an AKSF claim and appears nowhere in their material. AKSF publishes no participant total. The commonly-cited founding of 1994 in Strasbourg is likewise unverified — the regulations state the contest was created in France in 1991, explicitly based on the Australian Mathematics Competition.

Practise the same format

Original CREST Champs problem sets built to match this competition's format, timing and difficulty — our own content, so you can sit one today rather than waiting for the real date.

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Questions parents ask

How many questions are in Math Kangaroo?

It depends entirely on your country. AKSF sets no international question count, and members are explicitly permitted to use fewer questions or substitute their own. In the USA it is 24 questions for grades 1-4 and 30 for grades 5 and up; other national bodies differ, and at least one publishes contradictory numbers on its own site.

Is there a penalty for wrong answers in Kangaroo?

AKSF does not say — marking is set nationally. Math Kangaroo USA deducts nothing. Do not assume the same applies to your country's paper without checking.

Why is Kangaroo always in March?

AKSF fixes it to the third Thursday of March, no earlier than 06:00 Central European Time, so that papers are not sat before others have started. A country may postpone for local reasons but may never run it early.