The Latvian Olympiad in Linguistics is held annually in the first half of the second semester in Riga Secondary School №40 (Terbatas iela 15/17) and consists of two rounds. The first round is open to everyone regardless of age and school performance. The participants with the highest scores in the first round pass on to the second one, where the winners are determined and four contestants are chosen to represent Latvia at the International Olympiad in Linguistics (IOL).
The problem set of the Latvian Olympiad usually (but not always) consists of 5 problems for which 5 hours are given. It is significantly easier than the problem set at the IOL, nevertheless it is composed with the idea that only 1-2 participants would get close to the maximum score. As a rule, the second round is more difficult than the first one.
For the grading of the solutions the jury use the same main principle as at the IOL: not only the answers, but the whole solutions are graded; absolutely correct answers with no explanation get low scores. The solver must discover patterns and understand the phenomena shown in the problem, and then write down his/her observations.
For the last couple of years Latvia has been successfully performing at the International Olympiad. The list of medals and other prizes of Latvian contestants is available on the IOL website.
If you have any questions regarding the Olympiad the organizers will be happy to answer them (see CONTACTS)