Contest Rules, Format and Scoring

Getting help from anyone outside your team is strictly forbidden. So is communication of any kind between different teams.

Entering a problem's language data into any AI tool, in whole or in part, is strictly forbidden — the words, phrases or sentences in the language being analysed, whether copied, retyped, reworded or screenshotted. You may use information from the problem to search up relevant concepts, features or terminology, and you may use AI tools to search and read up on those concepts, but solving the problem must remain solely the work of your team.

Any team found to have broken these rules and wilfully gained an unfair advantage over other teams will be disqualified and removed from the leaderboard.

Keep all your working, physical or digital, and submit it through the Google form at the end of the contest (see "After the contest"). It makes it much easier for us to tell, with certainty, that your work is really yours. Don't fret about neatness — just make sure we can see how you got your answer!

Teams suspected of breaking the rules may be asked to attend an interview, around 1 to 2 weeks after the contest, to show that their submissions are their own work. Not attending may result in automatic disqualification. Teams concerned will be contacted by email and Discord after the contest.

Each team has between 3 and 5 members. Only teams of this size may take part.

Every team member has their own account and signs in individually. Wugs earned on each account count toward the team's total, as well as that member's individual tally.

You can only be signed in to your account on one device. Other devices signed in to the same account are signed out after a short time.

The contest runs on Sunday 29 November 2026, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm SGT (three hours). All times are Singapore time.

Before the contest, signing in takes you to a waiting page showing the start date and time and organiser announcements.

During the contest (10:00 am – 1:00 pm), you can unlock problems, submit answers and use skips.

After the end, no more answers, unlocks or skips are accepted. Your team and individual results, and post-contest instructions, become visible.

The contest ends at 1:00 pm SGT on 29 November 2026, three hours after it starts.

Every team must submit its workings for all questions — physical (clear photos or scans) or digital (typed or annotated documents, or screenshots of them) — along with feedback. The Google form for workings and feedback opens to all contestants when the contest ends.

Official team standings will be published, and certificates sent, around one to two months after the contest. Look out for them on our social media and in your email!

Your team has 4 problem slots. Each slot is either empty or holds one open problem. A problem is made up of several smaller questions that can be answered separately.

Clicking an empty slot shows the next 4 problems available to your team. Before you unlock one, you can see the title, Wugs and difficulty (Super Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard or Super Hard) of all four; everything else stays hidden.

The choices are listed by difficulty, from Super Easy to Super Hard.

An unlocked problem occupies a slot until your team completes it (every question in it is finished) or skips it.

Completed and skipped problems cannot be reopened.

Skipping a problem does not affect Wugs already earned from it.

Each problem has its own statement (a PDF you can view or download) and a set of questions. Questions may be split into parts answered separately — for example Q1a and Q1b, then Q2, then Q3a, Q3b and Q3c.

You can answer questions in any order.

Each question or part has its own number of attempts, shared by the whole team. By default this is 1 attempt for multiple choice and 3 attempts for every other type, but some questions differ. The number allowed is shown on the problem page.

A question is finished when it is answered correctly, or when its last attempt is used up on a wrong answer.

Some questions provide special characters (letters or symbols not on a typical keyboard), which you can copy to type your answer.

For multi-field answers, after a set number of attempts the page may show which individual boxes are right and wrong when you submit. That number can differ between questions.

A wrong answer freezes that problem for your whole team for 30 seconds. During the freeze, nobody on your team can submit answers in that problem.

A freeze in one problem does not affect other problems.

A wrong answer scores no Wugs and does not reveal the correct answer.

A wrong answer scores 0 Wugs.

Wugs are added to the team's tally and to the submitting member's individual tally.

If organisers correct a score, the correction appears as a separate entry.

A skip closes a problem for your team and frees its slot. Skips are shared by the whole team.

Your team starts with 1 skip and can hold at most 2.

While you hold fewer than 2, a new skip arrives every 15 minutes. At 2 the timer pauses; it restarts when you use one.

If errors are found in a problem, the organisers may void specific parts or the whole problem.

A voided problem is removed from the list of problems teams can unlock. If it is open for your team at the time, it immediately counts as completed and its slot is freed.

Wugs already earned on voided questions or problems may stay in your tally, be removed or be otherwise amended, subject to the organisers' review. Your team will be told if voiding affects its tally.

Announcements, including corrections to problems, are posted on the Announcements page, newest first.

Pop-up notices in the bottom-right corner tell you about announcements, correct and wrong answers, completed problems, errors and the end of the contest.

Need help during the contest? Contact the organisers by email at contact@sglinguisticsleague.org or on the official SLL Discord server (opens in a new tab).

Singapore Linguistics League 2026 reserves the right to change minor details of the rules, format and scoring at any time without informing participants.