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<p>Hi, Sly Si, I know you know what you’re talking about, because you were always so dominant on the AMC tests when you lived here. On my part, I don’t particularly care how it’s implemented, but I HAVE liked the severe penalty for guessing on the AMC 10 and 12, because that distinguishes students with “yeah, I know that” knowledge of math from those with “I can calculate this exactly, and prove why this answer and only this answer is correct” knowledge of math. To be sure, it is a good idea under the scoring rules that end this year to play conservatively, that is not to guess, but one still gets a higher score for more RIGHT answers, and the main difficulty of the AMC tests for most test-takers is that most students can only get just a few right answers. </p>
<p>Steven Dunbar, the AMC director, of course agrees with you that it is deplorable that people are qualifying for AIME having hardly answered half the questions, but to me that’s a feature, not a bug, because that group of test-takers should be the YOUNG test-takers who are simply trying to qualify for AIME while still of, say, sixth-grade age. The older test-takers should have enough gumption to try to qualify for MOP (or even for IMO), and those test-takers have always had plenty of incentive to do more than the bare minimum in racking up points on the AMC 10 and AMC 12. </p>
<p>I hope you’re enjoying good weather where you are right now.</p>