Why the organization structure of IAO does not follow one of IPhO?
The governing body of the IPhO consists of the delegation leaders from each country attending the IPhO; and the governing body of the IAO is EAAS.

Every International Science Olympiad has its own history, style, traditions, scale, organization structure and administrative system. They may be different. Many International Olympiads were organized initially by a country that invited teams from other countries to participate, and the host country was responsible for all organization. During the first years they had no Statutes, they had no a coordinating body and the total responsibility went from the host country of the past Olympiad to the host country of the next Olympiad. Later, due to absence of the governing body, the delegation leaders (arrived to the Olympiads with the contestants) were forced to declare themselves to be such a governing body for coordination the efforts, formulation rules, forming working bodies, choose the hosts of the next Olympiads and (in some Olympiads) to select the Olympic problems.

The IAO was founded by an international body, the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society since the very beginning; its realization and holding is done every year under this organization of professional astronomers; National Astronomical Societies (or other representative astronomy organizations) of the participating states are the registered members of IAO. IAO was born in the era of electronic communication when the physical presence of representatives of countries' organizations at the common meeting has become not actual to elaborate the common decisions; and the direct voting of the members-organizations of the countries is used. Specifically, it allows adopting more thought-out issues that are not affected by the particular situations and impressions at the current Olympiad. The points of view discussed at the team leaders conferences are very important as well; since the oral way of discussions appears not possible for a part of team leaders who do not well understand the oral language (or pronunciation) of communication, the IAO rules recommend the written form for the discussions and requires it for any voting about changing of the rules (including at least three weeks to think and give the vote).

The above matters allowed using the advantages of the older International Science Olympiads and avoid their shortcomings. The advantages of relatively small scale of IAO (about 20 participating states) in comparison with the scale of other Olympiads (about 90 countries in IMO, 70 in IPhO, 60 in IChO, etc.) are used as well, particularly that allow to hold IAO events not so formal as it appear inevitable for larger scale events. The leading of EAAS in holding of IAO also allows to prevent transformation IAO into event where the tourist-recreation constituent for the people coming to the Olympiad with the students became dominant.

So the experience in preparing and holding of other International Olympiads is used in IAO. Nevertheless the direct refer to every point of rules and traditions of other Olympiads is not reasonable.

Why the problems for the IAO may be proposed for every person?
The host country is totally responsible for the matter of rounds at other International Olympiads.

Yes, the roles of Coordinating Council and Commissions are more important at IAO in comparison with other Olympiads.

At some other International Olympiads the host country appears to be responsible either for customs organization of the Olympiad or rounds' matter. This fact makes the work of local organizers more hard and difficult for Olympiad realization. More over, the role of astronomy in education is very specific, so the distribution of duties between the local organizers and the international commissions is more actual at IAO rather than at other subject olympiads.

Why special additional tourist program for observers does not exist at IAO?
Such programs are helpful to get financial support for some teams since in this case the officials become personally interesting for tourist trips to the place of the Olympiad.

May be, you are right, talking about help to get financial support.
But the policy of IAO is to keep the educating style of the Olympiad.
Organization of tourist-recreation constituents for the delegation leaders and observers sidetracks the local organizers from the solutions of main constituents. It is necessary to mention that the trip to IAO should not be esteemed (conscientiously or subconsciously) by anybody as the tourist trip under "all included" scheme.

What are the requirements for an observer from a new country?
May one participate in IAO as observer-tourist?

An observer should be not private person but should represent related to astronomy (or astronomy education) organization interesting in IAO. Any member of National Astronomical Society or National Association for Astronomy Education or similar organization may participate as an observer (with an official agreement of the organization).
And IAO is not a tourist event.

Why a team leader of every country has to check other teams' students' papers?
The host country is totally responsible to form a jury that checks the students' papers at other International Olympiads.

It is also important. The jury at IAO includes representatives of every country participated at the actual IAO. The representatives' work is not formal. The representatives check all students' papers and so the jury is really international (i.e. functions of jury members not only to vote and to discuss about the formal questions). Also it is the second feature that makes the organization of the IAO more appropriate for the host country - not every country can find the enough number of astronomy specialists possible to solve and check the (very unusual) problems of IAO.

Does it mean that the local organizers are excluded from the process of preparing the matter for the rounds at IAO?

No. The local organizers are responsible for the matter of practical round and (mostly) for the matter of observational round - i.e. the bases of the Practical and Observational Methodical Commissions are local. One scientist of the host observatory has to be a member and work at the Theoretical round Methodical Commission as well. They check the practical round papers. Also they organize the observational round and should find the necessary number of qualified examiners for the observational round.

Why there is no preliminary (before translation) meeting for all team leaders where everybody can discuss and vote about the matter of problems?

There were such discussions a few years (during the V-VIII IAOs). The experience of such a procedure shows a necessity for serious enlarging of the time before rounds, during which the team leaders have to be separated. Also this experience shows very low efficiency of such meetings and even production some tensions between team leaders (since every voting divide them into the groups "pro" and "contra" but the point of view of only one of these groups may be chosen).

But the main shortcoming of such procedure is the tension to simplify the problems, to make them more formal and less creative. As usual the community reject the most unusual (from the common point of view) problems. Finally such procedure deforms style of problems. It is experimental fact. One may compare the style of problems IAO and IPhO to check on it.

Now the IAO rules propose that the special international methodical commissions are responsible for the matter of the rounds. By the way, we have to remind that every team leader or every other person may send to the commissions his/her proposals for the problems.

In continuing... So why such the preliminary board meeting cannot be organized at the previous day (like at IPhO)?

Also for such a procedure it is necessary to keep secrecy. At IPhO it was (*) possible since team leaders and students live in different hotels that separated in space (for many kilometres) during all the Olympiad. But we consider it is not appropriate (see above).

(*) It is written above "was" but not "is" because of extremely quick introducing of new connecting technologies. A few years ago it was really enough to separate team leaders and students with organizing impossibility for students to use stationary telephones (and there were no mobile phones). Now technologies of mobile connections, GPRS, compact computers make the problem of secrecy unsolvable in the current frames of Olympic organization.

Why there is no moderation of the marking of the student's solutions at the IAO?
(Like there is at IPhO, for example.)

There is no only formal moderation at IAO (no word "moderation" in the documents), however, it is exists de facto as one of procedures of activity of jury, and it is organized more seriously. And we do not use the term "moderation", as it guesses some opposition between persons.

The difference is connected, first of all, with the generally different conception of organization of jury board.

IAO jury board (persons who check and evaluate students' papers) consists of the representatives of all countries-participants without any exception. The papers are checked and evaluated jointly by international collective of the specialists. The representative from each country sees activity of all members of jury. During the jury work he/she articulates nuances of the solutions of his/her team students to other jury members. The mark that is actually matched with the team leader put down to the minutes (the mark after de facto moderation). That is, all participating countries are representing in IAO jury board actually, but not only formally.

Unfortunately, the principle of jury work used on IAO is possible only at olympiads with a rather small number of commands (up to 30). The number of commands at IPhO is already more than a half of hundred.

IPhO jury board (persons who check and evaluate students' papers) consists only of the members from the country-organizer. Their marks, first of all, put down to the minutes. However, not always the local members of jury can disassemble thoroughly solutions in other languages. The moderation (conversation of the team leaders with the members of jury who checked and evaluated the students' solutions) is organized to avoid misunderstandings.

Evidently, the system of activity of jury on IAO is much more progressive rather than system of checking and evaluating the students' papers by the local members of jury with the following moderation. The last system has evident shortcomings:

Here it is important to point out, that the organizers of olympiads (IPhO particularly) are fine perceive all these problems, but for olympiads with such large number of countries it is impossible to organize more fair system of jury work. So the above-mentioned system is the most optimal for olympiads with more than 50 teams.

Note. The moderations that exist on some National (and other monolingual) olympiads are quite different. On these olympiads the students talk to the member of jury themselves, without the attorneys-advocates. But such type of moderation is impossible at the international olympiads because of language problems.

Who decided how many students to be awarded with the Diploma of every rank?
We see that either the number of them or percent are varying from year to year.

The diapasons of possible numbers of students to be awarded with the Diploma of every rank are defined by convention as percents of the total number of the participants. At the conclusion of all the rounds, and once all the results are available, the jury members will meet and look at the overall performance of all the students without knowing their names or nationality (the so called "blind minutes", here is an example of such minutes for XI IAO). They will then decide on the cut off level for the I Diploma, II Diploma, III Diploma (corresponding to the Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal Certificates) and Diploma of Participation. As usual jury members vote for that cut off level where the gap between the total scores is largest. Here is an example of the decision at XI IAO.

The decision of the Jury Board is final. Nobody can change the decision: neither Local Organizing Committee nor Olympic Coordinating Council nor Chairman of the Olympiad.

Why once every three years IAO has to be organized by an astronomical research centre of the historical territory of the Astronomy Olympiads?
We think it makes IAO "less-international".

Initially it was proposal of Brazilian Astronomical Society that every second year the IAO has to be organized in the Special Astrophysical Observatory (to keep traditions and scientific educating style) and every other second year - anywhere other (to extend the geography of the Olympiad). But it is too difficult for one observatory to organize IAO every second year, so the final solution for keeping traditions was to organize IAO in SAO (or other astronomical research centre of the "historical territory") every three (now - more) years. Countries of historical territory of the Astronomy Olympiads (Russian Federation, Crimea and Moscow land) agreed to take such duties. Other years during the period of three (now - more) years are to extend the geography of the Olympiad.

Periodical repeating of the place of organization - is not a criterion that makes an event "less-international". By the way, the main World's International event - UN General Assembly has meetings in New-York only.

We prefer such criteria of internationality of the Olympiad as the really international Jury Board and international distribution of duties in every IAO organization.

Why the "multiple-choice questions" are forbidden at the National Astronomy Olympiads?
It is quite easier to check such questions.
And the result of checking (mark) does not depend on the actual member of jury.

The question is not correct.
The "multiple-choice questions" are not forbidden, but they are not recommended as the problems (tasks) for the olympic rounds.

We shall answer for more general question: what types of problems are desirable for the olympiads.

The "multiple-choice questions" is a fast and simple way to check students' knowledge of formal facts. It can be really good to select the best (by these formal criteria) students. In particular it happens actual while an olympiad organizes in a town or a province, where there is no enough qualified jury, where qualified jury members cannot arrive from other places due to various reasons or where there are thousands of participants at some correspondence stage of an olympiad. The experience of usage of the "multiple-choice questions" in astronomy demonstrates their efficiency at classes to repeat the subjects, to check their knowledge in different areas of an astronomy before the beginning of the lessons, etc.

However, it is not the main purpose of olympiads. The "multiple-choice questions" do not stimulate the students to recognize the problem independently, to choose a model, to make necessary suppositions, estimations, to conduct multiway calculations or logic operations. To stimulate these qualities is one of the basic principles of the International Science Olympiads, especially - the Astronomy Olympiad. And these ways of solutions (instead of formal answers) should be of the first priority in evaluations of the participants' solutions.

It is important also, that the olympic problem should enable different approaches to the solution, different ways and methods in the solution. Participants should have a possibility to exhibit the analytical capacities, and not just to do all procedures by hard rules. The correct formal final answer (formula or numerical value) should not play the determining role in the evaluation. Also the jury must not demand from participants the same way of solution as written by the author (composer of the problem).

The "multiple-choice questions" frequently stimulate the students "to guess" the right answer, orienting not on knowledge of a subject; the opposite procedure is used: to except from the consideration incorrect answers.

Also it is important also, that the organizers of national olympiads on which the rounds are carried out in style of the "multiple-choice questions" appears quite worse qualified at the International Astronomy Olympiad. They are not good experiences in the rules, their job as jury members being more stressed and many difficulties appear while they check the conventional multi-stage problems and the problems that have correct alternative ways of solution.

The above explanations show that it is not reasonable to use the "multiple-choice questions" on high level olympiads.

In this connection the olympiads which used the "multiple-choice questions" for grading winners and prizewinners can not be recognized as IAO-type events.

Of course, the "multiple-choice questions" never can be used on the International Astronomy Olympiad. Possible types of the IAO-problems are written in the "Aims of the IAO".

Why a student who participated in IAO cannot take part in APAO?
For example, participation in Asian PhO is a good training for participation in IPhO.
From 8 members for APhO we select team of 5 students for IPhO.

It is not correct to say that "a student who participated in IAO cannot take part in APAO". This student cannot participate only in APAO of the same year - i.e. at the Olympiad that takes place only a month later (or even a couple of weeks as in 2006) than IAO. But a student who participated in IAO in the current year may take part in the next year APAO.

The general policy of IAO is to stimulate participation in Astronomy Olympiads more students rather than participation of the same students in many Olympiads. Our Astronomy Olympiads are educating and scientific events at first and competitions for solving problems (for which the "training" is necessary) only secondly.