Hi guys . Today ,The May Lunchtime Contest took place which yet again had questions from topics which are out of the IOI Syllabus .
What struck me again was how it had a Pure Combinatorics problem with constraints given in such a way that deriving the formula was mandatory to get a 100.
Lunchtimes are supposed to be a 3 hour 'IOI’ Style Contest , and it loses its purpose once questions start going beyond the scope of the syllabus.
This has been a constant issue with Lunchtimes. We have had Problems based on FFT and Euler Totient Function earlier and today we had a problem based on Hockey Stick Identity . Many of us have already complained regarding the questions that appear in Lunchtimes but no improvement is to be seen . What is the point of giving us questions from topics which are explicitly excluded from the IOI Syllabus?
There has been a post regarding this earlier but it appears as if it has been of no use.
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@animesh_f, I really apologize for the situation. I had no experience with IOI and when I looked at IOI syllabus, I found problem was more or less fitting within the syllabus. I gave the problem with the thought that a 12th standard student will sit for 2 hours and will be able come up with some formula. Actually, it is very easy to see once you draw the figure. I realized it after the contest that I misinterpreted the difficulty.
I will keep it in mind while setting lunch time in the future. Thanks for you feedback.
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No problem 
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Just a quick note, lunchtime students need not be in 12th standard. Even 8th graders have participated in IOITC.
Generally, IOI aspirants prefer not to have problems depending too much on knowledge of math 
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