Each spring hundreds of thousands of pupils in Germany sit the same 75-minute maths paper on the same morning, ticking one letter per question. In 2027 the Känguru der Mathematik moves to 8 April. This page explains how a pupil takes part, how the points are counted, what the scoring rule means for guessing, worked out exactly, and three multiple-choice puzzles of our own, solved by ruling answers out.
Live online since 2020 · 10,000+ students worldwide · quick thinking, checked carefully
In short
Modern Age Coders runs Känguru der Mathematik practice as live online lessons in English for children in Germany, Klasse 3 to 13, inside our Mathematik-Olympiade and Känguru Training course. Each child meets original multiple-choice questions at the right Klassenstufe, learns to strike out wrong options, and rehearses the 75-minute pace. A regular mentor keeps to the child's pace and accent; lessons run for groups of fifteen to twenty or one child alone.
Where Känguru pupils start
Courses that suit a Känguru child
One made for the two German school maths contests, one built around international Kangaroo-style papers, and one for the quick number sense that the first questions reward.
What is the Känguru der Mathematik, and when is it in 2027?
A multiple-choice maths contest written on one day, under supervision, at schools across Germany and in many other countries. In 2027 the date moves into April.
The 2027 date
The contest is usually held on the third Thursday in March. The organisers explain that in 2027 that date falls directly before the Easter holidays in almost all Länder, so the Känguru takes place as an exception on 8 April 2027.
Schools register their numbers of participants online from 1 December 2026, and registration closes on 31 January 2027.
How big it is
More than 920,000 pupils from more than 13,000 schools took part in Germany on 19 March 2026, according to the organisers, who note that the German figure has grown from 184 in 1995. Worldwide the organisers speak of about 6 million participants in over 100 countries.
The contest is prepared and marked centrally by the Mathematikwettbewerb Känguru e.V., based at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and run locally by the schools.
The Känguru paper by Klassenstufe
Klassenstufe
Questions
Minutes
Starting points
3 and 4
24
75
24
5 and 6
24
75
24
7 and 8
30
75
30
9 and 10
30
75
30
11 to 13
30
75
30
Source: Mathematikwettbewerb Känguru e.V., mathe-kaenguru.de, home page and Wettbewerb page, read on 3 November 2026. The paper is written under supervision with no technical aids, and each pupil competes in the Klassenstufe of their school year.
Taking part
How does a child in Germany enter the Känguru?
Only through school. The organisers rule out individual registration, and a school must be able to enter at least 15 pupils.
A teacher takes it on. Each school needs a responsible teacher who informs pupils and parents, registers, collects the per-pupil entry fee and runs the day.
Consent. Taking part is voluntary; the school needs the pupil's consent, or the parents', before entering them.
Registration. The teacher registers the number of pupils per Klassenstufe online between 1 December 2026 and 31 January 2027.
Contest day. 8 April 2027, 75 minutes, at school, under supervision, without calculators or other aids. Pupils keep the question sheet so it can be discussed afterwards.
Answers and results. Schools enter the answer letters online until Friday 16 April 2027 at 18:00. The organisers publish the correct letters the same day at 19:00, and the result packages reach schools from about three weeks after the contest.
Source: Mathematikwettbewerb Känguru e.V., Wettbewerb and Ablauf pages on mathe-kaenguru.de, read on 3 November 2026. The steps are our summary of the organisers' list.
If your child's school does not take part
The simplest route is a word with the maths teacher well before 31 January 2027. A school needs at least 15 participants, which a single keen class can reach.
There is no way to enter on your own: the organisers state plainly that individual registrations are excluded.
Our part
We are not connected with the Mathematikwettbewerb Känguru e.V., we do not register pupils and we run no contest venue. We prepare children with problems we write ourselves.
The organisers keep every Känguru paper since 1998 as free PDFs on their site, and run a daily puzzle Advent calendar from 1 December. We recommend both for practice at home.
Points and guessing
How are Känguru points counted, and should a child guess?
The organisers publish the rule in full. Turned into numbers it gives a clear answer: a blind guess is worth exactly nothing on average, and a guess after ruling out even one wrong option is worth something.
The rule
Everyone starts with as many points as there are questions: 24 in Klasse 3 to 6, 30 from Klasse 7. Questions get harder through the paper. In the first third a right answer earns 3 points, in the second 4 and in the last 5. A question left blank scores 0, and a wrong answer costs a quarter of its value: 0.75, 1 or 1.25 points.
That gives a range from 0, if every answer is wrong, to 120 or 150 if every answer is right.
What a guess is worth (our calculation)
Each question has five options, A to E. A blind guess is right one time in five. On a 4-point question it gains 4 points one time in five and loses 1 point four times in five: on average exactly zero. The rule was built so that blind guessing neither helps nor hurts.
Rule out one option and the guess is right one time in four. Now the average gain is positive. The program below works out every case exactly.
The scoring rule, turned into expected gainsPython
from fractions import Fraction
print("Most points, Klasse 3 to 6:", 24 + 8 * 3 + 8 * 4 + 8 * 5)
print("Most points, Klasse 7 to 13:", 30 + 10 * 3 + 10 * 4 + 10 * 5)
for value in [3, 4, 5]:
gains = []
for ruled_out in range(4):
left = 5 - ruled_out
p_right = Fraction(1, left)
gain = p_right * value - (1 - p_right) * Fraction(value, 4)
gains.append(str(gain))
print(value, "point task, expected gain with 0 to 3 ruled out:", ", ".join(gains))
It prints Most points, Klasse 3 to 6: 120 and Most points, Klasse 7 to 13: 150, then 3 point task, expected gain with 0 to 3 ruled out: 0, 3/16, 1/2, 9/8, 4 point task, expected gain with 0 to 3 ruled out: 0, 1/4, 2/3, 3/2 and 5 point task, expected gain with 0 to 3 ruled out: 0, 5/16, 5/6, 15/8.
Average points gained by answering instead of leaving a question blank (our calculation from the organisers' rule)
Question value
Nothing ruled out
One ruled out
Two ruled out
Three ruled out
3 points
0
3/16
1/2
9/8
4 points
0
1/4
2/3
3/2
5 points
0
5/16
5/6
15/8
Rule: Mathematikwettbewerb Känguru e.V., Auswertung section of mathe-kaenguru.de/wettbewerb/, read on 3 November 2026; five answer letters A to E as accepted by the organisers' online entry. The expected gains are our own exact arithmetic with Python fractions.
The first two lines of output are a check on our reading of the rule: 24 starting points plus eight questions each at 3, 4 and 5 gives 120, and 30 plus ten of each gives 150, exactly the maxima the organisers state. The table then turns into one sentence a child can remember: never guess blind, always guess after crossing one option out. With two options gone, a 5-point question is worth five sixths of a point on average, more than many children expect. That is why our Känguru practice is really practice in elimination: spotting, fast, which answers cannot be right.
Practice, ours
What do Känguru-style questions train? Three practice puzzles of our own
These three multiple-choice puzzles are our own work, made for this page, one for each part of a paper. None is a Känguru question. Each is solved by ruling options out before calculating.
Puzzle 1, a 3-point style question (ours)
The Känguru 2027 is on Thursday 8 April 2027. On which weekday is 8 May 2027? (A) Friday (B) Saturday (C) Sunday (D) Monday (E) Thursday
Solution. April has 30 days, so 8 May is 30 days after 8 April. Thirty days is four weeks and two days. Thursday plus two days is Saturday: (B). Option (E) can be ruled out at once, because 30 is not a multiple of 7.
Puzzle 2, a 4-point style question (ours)
How many of the numbers 1 to 100 are divisible by 4 or by 6? (A) 29 (B) 33 (C) 35 (D) 37 (E) 41
Solution. 25 numbers are divisible by 4 and 16 by 6. Adding gives 41, but numbers divisible by both, which are the multiples of 12, are counted twice: there are 8. So 25 + 16 - 8 = 33: (B). Option (E) is the trap for anyone who forgets the overlap.
Puzzle 3, a 5-point style question (ours)
Five different positive whole numbers have an average of 10. What is the largest possible value of the biggest one? (A) 36 (B) 38 (C) 40 (D) 42 (E) 46
Solution. Their total is 50. To make the biggest as large as possible, make the other four as small as possible: 1, 2, 3 and 4, which add to 10. The biggest is then 50 - 10 = 40: (C). Options (D) and (E) are impossible, since even the smallest four other numbers leave only 40.
How we use puzzles like these
In class a child first says which options can be crossed out, and why, before working anything out. Only then do they calculate. On the real paper that habit turns a hard question from a blank into a well-informed guess.
Older children then check their answers with a few lines of code, below. On contest day there is no computer, so the checking is a training tool only.
Checking the three answers by brute forcePython
from datetime import date
from itertools import combinations
print("Puzzle 1:", date(2027, 4, 8).strftime("%A"), "->", date(2027, 5, 8).strftime("%A"))
print("Puzzle 2:", sum(1 for n in range(1, 101) if n % 4 == 0 or n % 6 == 0))
top = max(max(c) for c in combinations(range(1, 51), 5) if sum(c) == 50)
print("Puzzle 3:", top)
It prints Puzzle 1: Thursday -> Saturday, Puzzle 2: 33 and Puzzle 3: 40.
Puzzle 1, varied. Which weekday is 8 April 2028? Remember that 2028 is a leap year.
Puzzle 2, varied. How many of the numbers 1 to 100 are divisible by 4 or 6 but not by both?
Puzzle 3, varied. Now the five numbers may be equal. What is the largest possible biggest number?
Timing. Solve all three originals in under eight minutes, the time a Klasse 7 pupil has for three questions of the real 30.
After the contest
What does every Känguru participant receive?
Something, whatever the score. The organisers say no school or Land is compared with another; the aim is mathematical life at school.
Känguru recognition, as the organisers describe it
Who
What they receive
Every participant
A certificate with their score, a booklet with the questions, solutions and extra puzzles, and a small game, the prize for everyone
Longest run at each school
A Känguru T-shirt for the longest run of consecutive correct answers, the Känguru-Sprung
About the top 5 percent nationally
First, second and third prizes, set for each Klassenstufe in a ratio of about 1 to 2 to 3
The strongest of Klasse 7 to 10
Invitations to maths events with young people from other countries
Source: Mathematikwettbewerb Känguru e.V., Preise and Auswertung sections of mathe-kaenguru.de/wettbewerb/, read on 3 November 2026. From Klasse 7 the booklet usually comes as a digital file.
The Känguru-Sprung is a lovely detail for a practice plan. It rewards a long unbroken run of correct answers, which is easier to build at the start of the paper, where the questions are worth 3 points and are meant to be within reach of school knowledge. Our timed rounds teach children to bank those first questions calmly before moving on.
Class times
When can Känguru practice run in German time?
Straight after school or on a weekend morning. In India, where our mentors teach, those hours fall in the late afternoon or evening.
Sample times for Känguru practice
In Germany
In India to 27 March 2027
In India from 28 March 2027
14:40
19:10
18:10
16:20
20:50
19:50
Saturday 10:15
14:45
13:45
Sunday 11:45
16:15
15:15
The Einheitenzeitgesetz sets German winter time at UTC+1 from 25 October 2026 and summer time at UTC+2 from 28 March 2027, eleven days before the contest. India stays on UTC+5:30, so the difference is four and a half hours, then three and a half.
The table shows possibilities, not fixed batch times. In the weeks before 8 April 2027 many families add a weekend timed paper, and one-to-one lessons can move to fit it.
Milestones
From a first multiple-choice paper to a calm 75 minutes
Our own milestones for Känguru pupils; the mentor sets the starting point from them and reports progress against them.
Känguru practice milestones (ours)
Stage
Typical school years
The pupil can
1. Reading the question
Klasse 3 to 4
Say in their own words what is asked before looking at the options
2. Ruling out
Klasse 3 to 6
Cross out impossible options and say why
3. The first third
Klasse 4 to 8
Solve the 3-point questions quickly and without slips
4. Choosing to answer
Klasse 5 and up
Decide when to answer and when to leave a question, using the scoring rule
5. A full paper
Klasse 5 and up
Pace a full 75-minute paper, with time to check
For children
Never guess blind. Cross one option out first, then guess.
Bank the first questions. They are worth fewer points, but every one counts.
For parents
Ask the maths teacher before the end of January whether the school is registered.
Print an old paper from the organisers' archive and do the first eight questions together over breakfast.
More courses
Nine more maths courses for children in Germany
Live, in English, with the same mentor every week, either in a group or one to one.
A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.
by Krish
Fees
Fees for Känguru practice classes
One month is eight live lessons. We state the fee in euro from the European Central Bank's reference rate, while the payment is made in US dollars and converted by your bank, so your statement may show a slightly different euro sum.
Free first class
Free
no card required
A free first class
A short set of our questions at your child's level
Students and parents reviewed us on Google; here are their words, untouched.
★★★★★
"The one step solution for my son. Modern Age Coders make learning coding so simple that kids love it. The teachers explain complex concepts clearly with practical exercises and interactive content."
Ria Mukherjee
Parent
★★★★★
"Modern Age Coders has been a game-changer for me. I struggled to grasp IT concepts and coding before joining, but their classes transformed everything. I can now confidently write complex programs with ease."
Samriddha Mondal
Student
★★★★★
"One of the most wonderful education centres out there. Education is not limited to school syllabus but focuses on skill development."
Vansh Agarwal
Student
★★★★★
"My child Dhairya is really enjoying the Modern Age Coders classes. This is his first online class and he eagerly looks forward to it. I can already see his improvement, and the teachers are very cooperative."
Sonam Oswal
Parent of Dhairya
★★★★★
"Modern Age Coders have wonderful teachers who teach in a clear, easy and practical way. The teacher boosts students' confidence and inspires them to learn without hesitation."
Sonu Goyal
Parent
★★★★★
"I highly recommend this computer coding class! The teachers are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about coding."
Ritu Kedia
Parent
Families in Germany ask
Känguru der Mathematik practice: common questions
When is the Känguru der Mathematik 2027?
On 8 April 2027. The organisers moved it from the usual third Thursday in March because that date falls right before the Easter holidays in almost all Länder in 2027. Schools register from 1 December 2026 to 31 January 2027.
Can I register my child myself?
No. The organisers say registration is only through the school, by a responsible teacher, and individual registrations are excluded. A school needs at least 15 participants. Modern Age Coders has no link with the Känguru e.V. and registers nobody.
Are the classes in German?
No. Lessons are live and in English only, and the mentor keeps to your child's speed and accent. Our worksheets print the German maths terms next to the English ones, so a German paper still looks familiar.
Should my child guess on the Känguru?
Not blindly. Under the organisers' rule a wrong answer costs a quarter of the question's value, so on our calculation a blind guess among five options gains nothing on average. After ruling out at least one option, answering gains points on average.
How many questions are there?
The organisers set 24 questions for Klasse 3/4 and 5/6, and 30 for Klasse 7/8, 9/10 and 11 to 13, all in 75 minutes, worth 3, 4 or 5 points each.
Do you use real Känguru questions?
No. We write our own questions in the same style. The organisers publish every paper since 1998 as free PDFs on mathe-kaenguru.de, which are good practice at home.
Can a child in Klasse 1 or 2 take part?
The organisers say interested younger children who can work alone may start in Klassenstufe 3. Our mental maths and elementary maths courses are a gentle start.
When are classes in German time?
Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. Younger children usually come right after school.
How do fees work?
The euro fee is calculated from the European Central Bank's reference rate, and we take the payment in US dollars; your bank converts it, so the amount it shows can vary a little. The first class is free.
Elsewhere on this site
Related pages
More for children in Germany who enjoy maths and puzzles.
During the trial lesson your child tries a handful of our questions, the mentor watches which options get crossed out and why, and you hear afterwards which band and course would fit.
Every lesson is live online, in English, with mentors working from India. Write to us on WhatsApp, in English, for a fast answer.
Want a class sooner? Book a priority demo
A priority demo is a full class of about 45 to 60 minutes. After the class the mentor sends a written skill report and a personal learning roadmap on WhatsApp. If you enrol, the demo fee is adjusted against your first month's fee. Share your demo Order ID with us on WhatsApp and we take it off.
