How to Use This Guide

About This Project

⚠️ Warning!

This guide does not serve as a syllabus! It features topics from prior NACLO problems and does not necessarily predict future ones. The NACLO may present problems involving topics not discussed.

Due to the lack of widely-available NACLO resources, this guide aims to be a place where beginners can learn about the contest and contestants can hone their skills on the various topics the NACLO covers.

Throughout this guide, we will cover various topics that are tested in NACLO, such as morphology, syntax, semantics, and computational problems. We will also provide helpful tips and strategies for approaching NACLO problems and suggest additional resources for further study.

So, whether you are a high school student interested in competing in NACLO, a teacher looking to incorporate computational linguistics into your curriculum, or simply someone interested in the fascinating world of language technology, we hope you find this guide informative and useful.

How to Use This

  • Many sections contain problems which you should solve. Some of these problems are marked with a star (★), and we strongly recommend you try them out.
  • Each problem has a certain ★ rating, which is intended to be an approximate amount of time required (corresponding roughly to difficulty): each ★ should take about 20-30 minutes for beginners and 10-20 minutes for veterans. (Of course, this can vary significantly, and your mileage may vary!)
  • The sections are mostly independent, so you can proceed them in any order you wish.
  • However, it is recommended that you start with the sections that introduce the basics of the contest before moving on to more advanced topics.
  • In addition to the problems included in this guide, we also recommend that you practice with additional past NACLO problems.

The Types of Problems

There are three general "categories" of problems which this guide is divided into.

  • Common problems are the types of problems that you would expect "most" problems to be; there are usally 2-4 of each type across both rounds.
  • Likely problems are the unique types of problems that usually appear in each contest, but not multiple times; there are usually 1 of each type across both rounds.
  • Rare problems have only historically appeared a few times, and perhaps never in recent contests.