CBO 2026
Congratulations to all the students who wrote the 2026 CBO exam. It was a challenging exam and they should be very proud of their efforts.
The 2026 CBO Team Canada members, representing Canada at the IBO this summer are
| Nathan | Zhuang | Western Canada High School (AB) |
| Elizabeth | Chen | St. Regis Secondary School (BC) |
| Shihao | Bao | Toronto French School (ON) |
| Zheng | Wu | White Oaks Secondary School (ON) |
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CBO DOES NOT ISSUE CERTIFICATES AFTER THE COMPETITION
The full list of gold, silver and bronze levels is available here. Rankings are determined using the same system as the IBO; the top 10% of students achieved gold level, the next 20% achieved silver level, and the next 30% achieved bronze level. Students below the bronze level are not listed. Students are listed in alphabetical order within each category. Scores are not released.
Details about the 2027 CBO competition will be available later this year
The exam will have approximately 35 questions and will be 1 hour in length
Like the IBO, the level of knowledge required to tackle the questions will be based on information found in Campbell Biology. Many of the questions will be application questions.
To get an idea of the types of questions you will see in the competition paper, you can look at these sample questions.
In addition, students are encouraged to work through old IBO past papers available here: https://www.ibo-info.org/en/info/papers.html
Students who register for the CBO competition can request the password to IBO past exams that require one by emailing admin@canadianbiologyolympiad.ca
Suggested labs for 2027 - TBD
The CBO will continue to review a potential list of suggested labs. We encourage all students to be prepared to answer lab-based questions for scenarios commonly addresses in the grade 12 biology curriculum and first year university biology introductory courses
Common Techniques (updated)
Students are strongly encouraged to be familiar, and if at all possible, get hands-on experience with these common techniques. Questions based on these techniques are likely in future CBO exams.
