Philosophy
Tournament of Towns differs from many other similar competitions by its philosophy relying much more upon ingenuity than the drill. First, problems are difficult (especially in A Level in the Senior division where they are comparable with those at International Mathematical Olympiad but much more ingenious and less technical). Second, it allows to participants to choose problems they like as for each paper the participant's score is the sum of 3 his/her best answers.
The problems are mostly combinatorial, with the occasional geometry, number theory or algebra problem. They have a different flavour to problems seen in other mathematics competitions, and are usually quite challenging. Some of the problems have become classics, in particular two from the Autumn 1984 paper.
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