AIO 2026: Your Last-Week Checklist
The Australian Informatics Olympiad 2026 sits on Thursday 27 August. Entries closed on Friday 21 August, so if you are registered, everything from here is about execution rather than content. This page covers the final week only — for dates, entry rules and the full study plan, see our AIO exam guide.
What should I do in the last week before the AIO?
Stop learning new algorithms. A technique met for the first time this week will not be reliable under exam pressure. The final week is for re-solving problems you have already solved, until the familiar patterns come back fast and correctly.
Three things are worth the time:
- Re-solve, do not re-read. Reading a past solution feels productive and teaches almost nothing. Type it again from scratch.
- Practise reading input. Losing marks to a file-reading mistake on a problem you could solve is the most avoidable way to lose points.
- Do one full-length timed run. Not for the score — for the experience of deciding, under a clock, which problem to abandon.
What language should I use in the AIO?
The allowed languages are C, C++, Java and Python 3. Use whichever one you are fastest and most accurate in. The exam does not reward the language that runs fastest; it rewards the solution you can actually finish and test.
Where to go next
Whatever this year's paper exposed, there is a course pitched at that level. Pick by where you actually got stuck, not by year group.
- Complete beginners to programming
- Want real competition Python, not toy snippets
- Can already code, stuck on Q2–Q3
- Needs the standard techniques
- Targeting the top of the AIO
- Wants every past-paper pattern drilled
Exam-day setup checklist
- Your editor and compiler run, and you have tested reading input from a file rather than only from the keyboard
- You have submitted at least once through the real system, so exam day is not the first time you meet it
- A visible clock, and a decision made before you start about how long you will spend before moving on
- Water, and nothing scheduled for the hour afterwards
How should I split my time across the questions?
Bank the accessible marks first. A complete, tested solution to an easier problem is worth more than a half-working attempt at a hard one. Work through in order, and only return to the hardest problem once everything else is submitted and verified.
If a problem has not moved in fifteen minutes, that is information, not failure. Leave it, secure the marks elsewhere, and come back with whatever time remains.
When do AIO results come out?
Results are released to schools rather than to students directly, and take several weeks after the sitting. Ask your teacher or competition coordinator — they receive them first, and they are the people who can tell you where your score sat.
Need a proper plan for next year? Start where you actually got stuck
The single most useful thing to do while it is fresh is write down which problems you could not crack and what you tried. Then pick the course that matches that list — not your year group:
- Could not turn the idea into working code, or have never written Python. Start at AIO Python Foundation — first contact with real competition programming, from zero.
- Can code, but did not know which approach a problem wanted. That is the Q2–Q3 wall, and it is a technique gap rather than a coding gap. AIO Algorithms drills the standard patterns until recognising them is automatic.
- Solved the early problems but ran out of time or ideas on the last ones. AIO Advanced is the final-stretch course: every past-paper pattern, worked under real timing.
Not sure which of the three describes you? The three cards above list the lesson count, the time commitment and exactly who each one is built for — and the first three lessons of every course are free, so the level can be checked before paying anything.