Current Difficulty Scale
13 Jan 2021Current difficulty scale used for OpenPOTD
Beginner (Monday & Tuesday) - Below D1
These problems should not require any ‘Olympiad knowledge’ to solve, they should be approachable to an absolute beginner (though that is not to necessarily say they should be trivial for an absolute beginner). The difficulty of these problems, relatively speaking should be in the range of AMC12 Q1-15, or SMC Q1-20. Furthermore, they should not be particularly involved outside of a basic idea or problem mechanic.
Easy (Wednesday) - Below D1 - D1
These problems should bridge the gap between Olympiad problems and absolute beginners, they may only require fundamental ‘Olympiad techniques’ to solve, and should for the most part still be completely accessible to someone just starting out. Conceptually these problems should still be straight forward. The difficulty of these problems, relatively speaking, should be in the range of AMC12 Q16+, AIME Q1, SMC Q20+ or even an easy BMO1 Q1.
Medium (Thursday) - D2-3
At this difficulty solvers should be expected to solve - what may be considered to be - easy to medium Olympiad problems. That is, the problems may be more conceptually involved, but still only require fairly well known methods. The difficulty of these problems, relatively speaking, should be in the range of AIME Q1-5, BMO1 Q1-3).
Hard (Friday) - D4-D5
Hard problems should have little in the way of restrictions on content, they should be challenging to a majority of attempters. The difficulty should equate roughly to something akin to AIME Q6-15, BMO1 P4-6 and BMO2 P1-2.
Challenging (Saturday & Sunday) - D6-D8
The difficulty of these problems may be anywhere from a BMO2 P3-4 to IMO 2/5.\