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Contest !!top!! | Natplus

In 2015, a printing error occurred. The Day Two booklets for Section B (seats 112–145) contained a completely different set of problems—problems that, by all accounts, were impossible. One question allegedly asked: "Prove or disprove the existence of a finite number that is its own successor, using only the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory and a haiku about entropy."

For the uninitiated, the NatPlus Contest sounds like just another high school competition: a multidisciplinary exam promising scholarships, prestige, and a line on a college resume. But ask anyone who has made it to the National Finals, and they will tell you a different story. They will tell you about the maze. They will tell you about the "Dark Packet." They will tell you about the year the answer key was a lie. natplus contest

And one of them will walk out with the Voss Medal, forever changed—not because they knew the most answers, but because they learned that the hardest problems don't have answers. In 2015, a printing error occurred

One finalist from 2020 (who asked to remain anonymous) told me: "I trained for eighteen months. I solved over two thousand practice problems. Nothing prepared me for the moment they said, 'The square is now a triangle. You have ninety minutes.' I laughed. Then I cried. Then I solved it. Barely." Every enduring contest has its myth, and NatPlus has the Dark Packet . But ask anyone who has made it to

Defenders counter that NatPlus is honest about the world. "Real research doesn't come with a study guide," says two-time champion Leo Zhang (now a PhD candidate in theoretical physics). "You get incomplete data, contradictory instructions, and a ticking clock. NatPlus isn't cruel. It's real."

On a rain-slicked Tuesday evening in a nondescript convention hall outside Chicago, three hundred teenagers sit in perfect silence. The only sounds are the scratch of pencils, the hum of industrial HVAC units, and the occasional, stifled sob. A timer on the wall ticks down from 180 minutes.

The infamous "Long Form." Students receive a 30-page booklet. The first 25 pages are source material: a fragment of a lost Greek play, a spreadsheet of epidemiological data from a fictional pandemic, a patent for a new type of battery, and a single photograph of an obscure 1927 political rally in Vienna. The last five pages contain four prompts. The catch: you cannot answer Prompt 4 without using information from Prompts 1–3, and the photograph from Vienna is a red herring (but no one knows which year they’ll remove it).

In 2015, a printing error occurred. The Day Two booklets for Section B (seats 112–145) contained a completely different set of problems—problems that, by all accounts, were impossible. One question allegedly asked: "Prove or disprove the existence of a finite number that is its own successor, using only the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory and a haiku about entropy."

For the uninitiated, the NatPlus Contest sounds like just another high school competition: a multidisciplinary exam promising scholarships, prestige, and a line on a college resume. But ask anyone who has made it to the National Finals, and they will tell you a different story. They will tell you about the maze. They will tell you about the "Dark Packet." They will tell you about the year the answer key was a lie.

And one of them will walk out with the Voss Medal, forever changed—not because they knew the most answers, but because they learned that the hardest problems don't have answers.

One finalist from 2020 (who asked to remain anonymous) told me: "I trained for eighteen months. I solved over two thousand practice problems. Nothing prepared me for the moment they said, 'The square is now a triangle. You have ninety minutes.' I laughed. Then I cried. Then I solved it. Barely." Every enduring contest has its myth, and NatPlus has the Dark Packet .

Defenders counter that NatPlus is honest about the world. "Real research doesn't come with a study guide," says two-time champion Leo Zhang (now a PhD candidate in theoretical physics). "You get incomplete data, contradictory instructions, and a ticking clock. NatPlus isn't cruel. It's real."

On a rain-slicked Tuesday evening in a nondescript convention hall outside Chicago, three hundred teenagers sit in perfect silence. The only sounds are the scratch of pencils, the hum of industrial HVAC units, and the occasional, stifled sob. A timer on the wall ticks down from 180 minutes.

The infamous "Long Form." Students receive a 30-page booklet. The first 25 pages are source material: a fragment of a lost Greek play, a spreadsheet of epidemiological data from a fictional pandemic, a patent for a new type of battery, and a single photograph of an obscure 1927 political rally in Vienna. The last five pages contain four prompts. The catch: you cannot answer Prompt 4 without using information from Prompts 1–3, and the photograph from Vienna is a red herring (but no one knows which year they’ll remove it).