KCSL Rules

1. Eligibility

  • Junior Division: Up to Grade 9 (3rd year in Korean middle school)

  • Intermediate & Senior Division: No grade or age limit

2. Participating Institutions (Teams)

  • An institution may participate in multiple levels or in multiple Divisions. 

  • Within a division, a school forms one or more teams. Each team can choose to compete as a 5-score team or a 3-score team. Students take the same tests regardless of being on 5-score or 3-score team.

  • On a 5-score team, there can be up to 20 registered students whose names will appear on the ACSL Leaderboard. The score for each contest is the sum of the top 5 student scores for that contest. Different students from the same team might be in the top 5 for each contest.

  • On a 3-score team, there can be up to 12 registered students whose names will appear on the ACSL Leaderboard. The score for each contest is the sum of the top 3 student scores for that contest. Different students from the same team might be in the top 3 for each contest.

  • An adult team advisor must be available to handle communications with the registered students.

  • A student may only participate as a member of a single team. After Contest #1, a student cannot change teams.

3. Contests

  • All Preliminary Contests are administered as online tests on the Goorm platform.

  • With an exception of a dictionary, no resources including the Internet and human assistance are allowed during the tests.

  • Both Short Problems (Theory) and Programming have five test problems, each of which is worth 1 point (10 points total).

4. Short Problems (Theory)

  • Five problems are given in this part.

  • One point is awarded for each answer that matches the ACSL solution.

  • The time limit is 30 minutes for the Junior, Intermediate, and Senior Division.

  • The only materials allowed for the short answer tests are plain paper and a writing implement. Calculators are not allowed.

5. Programming

  • Five test data are given in this part.

  • One point is awarded for each program output that matches ACSL's test output.

  • Students have 3 hours to submit their programming solution.

  • Students must work alone in programming their code.

  • Any programming language may be used, however, Java, C, C++, Python, or Python 3 are recommended.

6. Scores

  • A team score is the sum of the best 3 or 5 student scores for each contest.

  • All team scores are posted on ACSL Homepage.

  • High-scoring students in all divisions will be invited to an end-of-year online Finals competition.

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