Checklist IOAI PH 2026 National Finals · T task
Theory & Technical Concepts
Answer 30 multiple-choice questions on mathematics and classical ML, deep-learning mechanics, and generative AI and safety in one hour.
The task
Section 1 (Mathematics & Classical ML): feature maps, the Hessian, L1 vs L2 geometry, MLE bias, SVM margin, PCA eigenvalues, gradient-descent updates, naive Bayes, k-means convergence, information gain. Section 2 (Deep Learning Mechanics): initialisation symmetry, CNN arithmetic, 1×1 convolutions, receptive fields, vanishing gradients, batch normalisation, ResNet skips, self-attention memory, dropout, pooling. Section 3 (Generative AI & Safety): temperature scaling, positional encodings, instruction tuning, reward hacking, adversarial gradients, diffusion forward process, BPE, RAG, equalized odds, RNN vs Transformer parallelism.
Abridged by SOTA from the official materials. The official statement has the exact rules, and it wins wherever this summary differs.
At a glance
- You submit
- One option per question.
- Rules
- Duration: 1 hour.
- Format
- IOAI Philippines 2026 National Finals, theory component.