Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Maths · Class 8
International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) Class 8: 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 Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF)'s own site on 15 August 2026. Exam dates re-checked on 28 September 2026.
2026–27 exam dates
Date 1
23 October 2026
Date 2
26 November 2026
Date 3
10 December 2026
Registration: Your school picks one of the three dates above, and registrations must reach SOF 30 days before that chosen date — so 23 September 2026 for the October date, 27 October for the November date, and 10 November for the December date. The school chooses the date, not the family, and once chosen it cannot be changed. Ask your school coordinator which date they have picked and work backwards from that one cutoff.
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 IMO paper is structured
| Section | Questions | Marks per question | Section total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Logical Reasoning | 15 | 1 | 15 |
| Mathematical Reasoning | 20 | 1 | 20 |
| Everyday Mathematics | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Achievers Section | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| Total | 50 questions | — | 60 marks · 60 minutes |
SOF states the split directly: 60% of Level 1 questions come from the current class syllabus and 40% from the previous class — so this paper is 60% Class 8 and 40% Class 7, out of the Ganita Prakash Class 7 book. Two exceptions, both in SOF's own words: "Questions in ACHIEVERS SECTION will be from current class syllabus only", and "Questions of level-II Olympiad exams will be from current class syllabus only". The 40% is where this paper is hardest to prepare for from school alone, because the Class 7 book itself leaves one olympiad-scope topic uncovered — the parallelogram and circle area extensions.
Syllabus
Maths syllabus mapped to NCERT Ganita Prakash (Class 8, 2026-27) — Part 1 + Part 2
Ch 1. A Square and A Cube
Olympiad syllabus label: A Square and A Cube
Ch 2. Power Play
Olympiad syllabus label: Exponents and Powers — SOF still uses the pre-2023 chapter name
Ch 3. A Story of Numbers
Olympiad syllabus label: A Story of Numbers
Ch 4. Quadrilaterals
Olympiad syllabus label: Quadrilaterals
Ch 5. Number Play
Olympiad syllabus label: Number Play
Ch 6. We Distribute, Yet Things Multiply
Olympiad syllabus label: We Distribute, Yet Things Multiply
Ch 7. Proportional Reasoning-1
Olympiad syllabus label: Proportional Reasoning — one SOF entry covers both this chapter and chapter 10
Ch 8. Fractions in Disguise
Olympiad syllabus label: Fractions in Disguise
Ch 9. The Baudhayana-Pythagoras Theorem
Olympiad syllabus label: The Baudhayana–Pythagoras Theorem
Ch 10. Proportional Reasoning-2
Olympiad syllabus label: Proportional Reasoning — the compound-proportion and compound-interest half of that same entry
Ch 11. Exploring Some Geometric Themes
Olympiad syllabus label: Exploring Some Geometric Themes
Ch 12. Tales by Dots and Lines
Olympiad syllabus label: Not named under this title on SOF's list; its graph content is what the older book called Introduction to Graphs
Ch 13. Algebra Play
Olympiad syllabus label: Algebra Play
Ch 14. Area
Olympiad syllabus label: Area
This is the first paper on this site whose published syllabus is written against the current book, and after two bodies in two days publishing Class 6 lists that predate it, that is worth saying plainly. SOF's Class 8 list reads: "A Square and A Cube, Exponents and Powers, A Story of Numbers, Quadrilaterals, Number Play, We Distribute, Yet Things Multiply, Proportional Reasoning, Fractions in Disguise, The Baudhayana– Pythagoras Theorem, Exploring Some Geometric Themes, Data Handling, Algebra Play, Area." Eleven of those thirteen entries are Ganita Prakash Class 8 chapter names, word for word. Two are not: "Exponents and Powers" is the pre-2023 name for what the book now calls Power Play, and "Proportional Reasoning" is a single entry covering two chapters, Proportional Reasoning-1 and Proportional Reasoning-2. One entry, "Data Handling", has no chapter of that name in the 2026-27 book at all — the book handles data through chapter 12, the Cartesian plane and reading graphs, which the older NCERT called Introduction to Graphs, plus mean and median. The classical data-handling material a question bank means by that phrase — frequency distributions, histograms and pie charts — sits in our curator taxonomy's Grade 8 legacy bucket rather than in the book, alongside advanced cryptarithms, and our Class 8 maths practice keeps all three in scope. The Logical Reasoning section (15 questions, a quarter of the paper) is a separate spine drawn from no maths chapter at all.
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Frequently asked questions
Related guides
Other olympiad syllabus guides
Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Class 6
IMO Class 6 — maths syllabus, dates and pattern
Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Class 7
IMO Class 7 — maths syllabus, dates and pattern
Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Class 8
IEO Class 8 — english syllabus, dates and pattern
Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) · Class 8
IHO Class 8 — hindi syllabus, dates and pattern
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SOF IMO vs SilverZone iOM: Classes 7 and 8 compared
At Class 7 and Class 8 these two maths olympiads stop resembling each other. SOF IMO is the same 50-question, 60-mark paper it is at Class 6. SilverZone iOM is not: half its 100 marks now sit outside the named syllabus sections, and its reasoning load doubles. Here is the side-by-side, and what it means for how your child should prepare.
SOF and SilverZone registration last dates 2026-27, explained for parents
Four school-route registration dates fall between 23 and 30 September 2026: if your school picks those sittings, SOF’s 30-day rule gives 23 September for a 23 October IMO, 27 September for a 27 October IEO and 30 September for a 30 October ISO, and SilverZone publishes 30 September 2026 for every paper. None of them is a form a parent fills in. Here is what each date means, what to ask the school, and where to go if the school is not entering your child.
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 8 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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