CREST Olympiads · Maths · Class 6
CREST Mathematics Olympiad (CMO) Class 6: syllabus, dates and exam pattern (2026–27)
Everything you need in one place — the exact NCERT chapters this paper tests, its published exam dates, the registration window, and the full marking scheme. Updated for the 2026–27 session.
Last verified against CREST Olympiads's own site on 13 August 2026. Exam dates re-checked on 28 September 2026.
2026–27 exam dates
Level 1 — date 1
10 December 2026
Level 1 — date 2
19 December 2026
Level 2 — date 1
9 February 2027
Level 2 — date 2
10 February 2027
CREST is an online exam, and both levels appear above because most Class 6 candidates will be eligible for the second one — see the Level 2 question below. Students pick a slot between 11 am and 7 pm IST on their chosen date. There is also an optional second practice test on 12 and 13 November 2026, and a free practice test available all year round.
Registration: CREST takes registrations two ways: through a school, which receives the prospectus and forms, or directly from the family online at crestolympiads.com/registration for students whose school does not participate. The fee published for students registering from India is ₹275. A child sitting the exam at home needs a working webcam. CREST publishes no hard cutoff date — its own guidance is to register before November rather than a stated deadline, so this is one of the few papers where the family controls the timing. CREST is not the only body a parent can enter alone: Unified Council accepts direct NSTSE entries, Indian Talent Olympiad runs an individual online route with its own later dates, and Humming Bird registers individual students online at ₹150 a subject. Most bodies register through the school. These do not have to, and SilverZone runs a public individual registration form at r.silverzone.org alongside its default school route, whose paper list we have not been able to confirm.
The deadline is set by your school, not by you
Most parents find the exam date and assume they have until then. The registration window closes long before it, and for some papers it has already started closing. Here is how it actually works.
- Your school registers your child and your school picks which of the 2–3 dates the class sits. The family does not choose.
- For SOF papers, registrations must reach SOF exactly 30 days before that chosen date — and once the school has chosen, the date cannot be changed.
- Most bodies register through the school. These do not have to: CREST (online, no published cutoff), Unified Council — directly for NSTSE itself at ₹350 against ₹150 through a school, and on three online sittings, NSTSE-Online, UIMO-Online and UIEO-Online, at ₹354 each including GST — Indian Talent Olympiad on its individual online route (its own later dates — Slot 1 closes 30 October), and Humming Bird (online, ₹150 a subject, no published cutoff — its two dates are picked as you register). CREST is the simplest of them. SilverZone also runs an individual registration form alongside its default school route; which papers it offers we have not been able to confirm.
Closing next
SilverZone Foundation — Every SilverZone paper
Registration closes 30 September 2026
The body publishes this date but has not marked it final — confirm with your school before treating it as fixed.
SOF ISO (Science) — if your school picks 30 October 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 30 September 2026
Indian Talent Olympiad (ITO) — School route — Set B
Registration closes 10 October 2026
SOF IEO (English) — if your school picks 17 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 18 October 2026
SOF IHO (Hindi) — if your school picks 23 November 2026
Registrations must reach SOF by 24 October 2026
Or read the full calendar on the site — no sign-up
Every deadline in this box was re-read against the exam body's own website on or after 28 September 2026. Each table carries its own source link and its own date. Bodies do move dates, so check against the body's own site before you act on one.
Exam pattern
How the CMO paper is structured
| Section | Questions | Marks per question | Section total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section 1 — Practical Mathematics | 40 | 1 | 40 |
| Section 2 — Achievers Section | 10 | 2 | 20 |
| Total | 50 questions | — | 60 marks · 60 minutes |
Both sections draw on the same syllabus — the Achievers Section is not extra topics, it is the same fourteen topics asked as higher-order-thinking questions at two marks each. Those ten questions are 20 of the 60 marks, so a third of the paper sits in the harder section.
Syllabus
Maths syllabus mapped to NCERT Ganita Prakash (Class 6, 2026-27)
Ch 1. Patterns in Mathematics
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named separately on CREST's list — new in the 2026-27 book; feeds number-pattern questions
Ch 2. Lines and Angles
Olympiad syllabus label: Basic Geometrical Ideas
Ch 3. Number Play
Olympiad syllabus label: Whole Numbers; Playing with Numbers
Ch 4. Data Handling and Presentation
Olympiad syllabus label: Data Handling
Ch 5. Prime Time
Olympiad syllabus label: Playing with Numbers (factors, multiples, primes)
Ch 6. Perimeter and Area
Olympiad syllabus label: Mensuration
Ch 7. Fractions
Olympiad syllabus label: Fractions; Decimals
Ch 8. Playing with Constructions
Olympiad syllabus label: Practical Geometry
Ch 9. Symmetry
Olympiad syllabus label: Symmetry
Ch 10. The Other Side of Zero
Olympiad syllabus label: Integers
The thing worth knowing before you open a book: CREST publishes its Class 6 maths syllabus as the contents page of the pre-2023 NCERT, not the book your child is actually studying from. Its fourteen listed topics are Knowing Our Numbers, Whole Numbers, Playing with Numbers, Basic Geometrical Ideas, Understanding Elementary Shapes, Integers, Fractions, Decimals, Data Handling, Mensuration, Algebra, Ratio and Proportion, Symmetry and Practical Geometry. Four of those fourteen have no chapter in the 2026-27 Ganita Prakash at all: Roman numerals (from the old Knowing Our Numbers), ratio and proportion including the unitary method, algebra — both algebraic expressions and simple one-variable equations — and the three-dimensional solids half of Understanding Elementary Shapes. A Class 6 child who revises only Ganita Prakash has prepared for ten of CREST's fourteen topics. The mapping in the table above is ours, not CREST's: it is the only way to read the body's old chapter names against the book on your child's desk.
Try it yourself
Today's maths question
Practice
Practice in the CMO format
No — OlympAI does not publish a practice paper for this exam. OlympAI has not built this paper’s section structure yet. CREST publishes one; matching our topics onto it is work we have not done, and a paper assembled against the wrong sections would be worse than none.
Frequently asked questions
Related guides
Other olympiad syllabus guides
Indian Talent Olympiad (ITO) · Class 6
ITO-H Class 6 — hindi syllabus, dates and pattern
Indian Talent Olympiad (ITO) · Class 6
ITO-SST Class 6 — social science syllabus, dates and pattern
Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Class 6
IEO Class 6 — english syllabus, dates and pattern
Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Class 6
IHO Class 6 — hindi syllabus, dates and pattern
Keep reading
Guides that answer the next question
Which olympiads can you register for without the school?
Most olympiad bodies register students through the school — but some take a family directly: CREST, Indian Talent Olympiad’s individual online route, Unified Council’s NSTSE and Humming Bird, and SilverZone runs an individual form of its own. Here is exactly how each one works, what it costs, and the deadline that applies to each.
Your child qualified for Level 2 — what that actually means
Level 2 means four different things at four different olympiad bodies. At CREST it is the top 55.56% of the class. At SOF it is roughly the top 5%. Here is each body’s published rule, the score it took at SOF last year for Classes 6 to 8, and the two things SOF says about Level 2 that most parents never see.
Or see every 2026-27 exam date and registration cutoff in one table, or browse all the papers we cover.
Practice these exact chapters, free
Up to 20 olympiad-pattern questions a day free, in each subject, and 200 a day on a paid plan — for Class 6 maths, generated from the same NCERT chapters above and written to the shape of the real olympiad papers, then automatically checked before they can be served, the hardest ones re-solved by a second model that has to agree.
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