Interpreting AMC 10 Math Score

Parents Forum
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<p>NYMomof2, there are several options if you are unable to persuade your school to register for the exam.</p>

<p>One option, possibly the simplest, is to find a nearby school offering the exam and ask if your student can take the exam as a “guest student.” There is an extra fee for the additional paperwork involved.</p>

<p>Also, next year, the AMC will be encouraging colleges and universities to offer the exam to all interested high school students in their area on the “B” date for the exam. So if your child’s high school refuses, you could approach nearby math department faculty and ask if any of them would be willing to sponsor an offering for local students. There is very little cost to the university in doing this and a lot of potential good will and free publicity.</p>

<p>(There are two dates for the initial AMC10/12 exams, an A date and a B date. Schools can offer both the A version and the B version dates, but most schools only offer one date, usually the A date. So a B date offering by a local college could draw students from schools that only offer the A date as well as schools that do not offer the exam at all.)</p>

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<p>I’ll chime in that my S heard about these exams on-line. He & friend worked hard to find ways to take the exams, and then find a sponsor, and start a math club. I know he didn’t take any tests until soph or jr year. I cannot recall how he did, but I do know that both he and friend got into the tech schools as juniors (friend followed S’s example the following year). I think their effort to do exams, enter state competitions, added to applications. It was certainly not the reason to begin. Your S, Alummom, finds these things “fun”.</p>

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<p>This is good news. Agreeing with Wisteria in answering NYMomof2’s question, it IS possible to set up an independent testing group. I have done that for several years now. Proctoring requirements are more stringent at the higher levels of testing (of course), so this involves effort, but both of the co-champions on the AMC 8 this year in Minnesota qualified for the AIME (one on the 12A, one on the 10A) and they will be testing with my AIME group tomorrow. I found an independent learning center (one of those tutoring centers that advertises each time of the year when report cards come out) that was willing to receive the tests by postal mail and to provide quiet space and proctors. Churches, public libraries, and (as Wisteria wrote) a public school in another school district are also possible hosts for AMC tests.</p>

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<p>Thank you, wisteria, bookworm, and tokenadult. I’m glad there are some other avenues if my S can’t take it through his school. I think it’s too late for this year (I’ll check in a few minutes) but I have plenty of time to arrange it for next year.</p>

<p>One more question: should he take the AMC8 or AMC10? He is now in 7th grade, 8th grade next year. But he takes math with 8th graders who are in an accelerated curriculum, so that his current course is considered 9th grade math and will be on his HS transcript. He will take Probability and Game Theory at CTY this summer (and we’ll compare notes afterward, tokenadult!)</p>

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<p>He should take everything he is still age-eligible for. Each test is a little different.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for the information and feedback. Ever since I came to cc I have been talking about my S and what if anything to do about the guy. I have actually done very little:), except encourage him to take the AMC, which it turns out he had actually decided to do on his own. That and have him come to Chinese classes with me…</p>

<p>I believe he should take the AMC12 - whether his results are worthy of note by colleges or not. He does like this stuff and does find it fun and math at school is far too easy for him. I will point out to him that he can study for the AMC12, but I will do no more than that. This is, frankly, a kid I should probably have accelerated but did not. I have sent both my kids to a progressive/alternative school - didn’t even have homework until 5th grade. Worked wonderfully for D, left S looking to other venues for interest. Unfortunately, his early interest in his 62 origami books and memorizing every poison dart frog on the Latin American peninsula gave way to Pokemun obssession in 7th grade. My fault for the Gameboy purchase. On the other hand, he now spends a lot of time playing soccer, at school and on his club team. His club team is mostly Latino players and they have all gotten to be friends, and S has learned a lot from exposure to kids from another culture. So who’s to know what is right? I am a great believer in random fortune. If S had really wanted to do math above and beyond all else I am sure he would have been like the kid on this site who had to be bribed to eat by being told he could do more math if he ate dinner. (Isn’t that a great story?).</p>

<p>So I hope no terrible harm was done in the long run by my ignorance. There are many many ways to find a path through the world. Outstanding academic achievement is only one of them. And college still awaits him. As long as he goes to a school where, as I said, he can find a significant group of highly intelligent kids and professors, I am assuming that all will be well.</p>

<p>I am just the matador, waving the cape at Ferdinand the bull. He’s eating flowers in the meadow, happy as can be. I have no intention of bringing out the picadors to stab him…</p>

<p>I would not have known about this math stuff if not for cc so I thank you all.</p>

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<p>

he should take probably take both. The AMC 8 is in November and the AMC 10 and 12 are in the spring. In our group all of the middle schoolers take the 8. Then all the reasonably high scorers are encouraged to take the AMC 10 with the high schoolers on the “A” date the following spring. Any one who does particularly well on that can then the AMC 12 on the “B” date, since we sign up for all of them.</p>

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<p>Take anythign you can take. When I was younger I qualified for both AMC 10 and 12, lettin me choose whicih score I wanted to goto AIME with. (A HUGE advantage). As for the school problem: My school never offered any ofhte AMC test. Go to a nearby school if you need to that offers the exams. Many schools will readily accept kids simply cause if a child does well, tis more press and prestige for their school. The child gets a rank, and everyone is happy :]</p>

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<p>Thanks to all from me, as well. I hope piggybacking onto a thread is more acceptable than hijacking one…</p>

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<p>I asked a question about the AMC exams last year. My son had taken the AMC-12 as a junior- his first and only math exam of this type. He was one of 40/400+ 11th and 12th grade kids at our largely Asian school who were urged to take the exam that year. He went to a one one-hour session to describe the test and then took the exam. This was the first or second year it had been administered at our school.He scored a 100, which was the 2nd highest at our school- the top score of 115 or so was acheived by a senior who generally was acknowledged as ‘the signficant intellect’ in this very high functioning school. That boy is now reading Physics at Cambridge.</p>

<p>Following this test S began receiving letters from ?EPGY (at Stanford…are these the initials??)…and a few other math oriented programs. He looked into them, but then decided to bypass them and also did not take the AMC-12 in his senior year. He just had other interests and this was not the direction he felt he was going in.</p>

<p>I mention this for a few reasons. Firstly, although a 100 is not ‘impressive’ per Texas137…we were all impressed! HIs score evidently placed him in the top 10 or even 15% of all the kids taking the exam- presumably the top math students across the country (or in our case across the ocean). This seemed pretty darn great to us. </p>

<p>For him, beyond this, came the realization that (once again) performance in a standard math curriculum was not the end all and be all of math ability. There were kids who did considerably less well than he who were doing at least as well as he in class. He came to see that the sort of problems on an AMC exam were testing a more flexible and synthetic approach to math- a different sort of intellect…</p>

<p>I think this was one of two specific ‘a-ha’ moments he had about himself as a learner. The first came as a 3rd grader when he, very bright, very verbal, great in math(!) could not spell worth a darn- felt stupid, wouldn’t write. In spite of all our input that he was just a kid who had trouble with letters and sounds (mild dyslexia)…it was not until the best speller in class was retained that he realized what we were saying was a reflection of a reality.</p>

<p>All along in school he had always seen that he was the first one to ‘get it’ in math…but just was not as ‘detail oriented’ as some…particularly on tedious tasks. The AMC-12 test reinforced to him what he was good at, gave him a chance to think about his learning- provided another “I told you so” moment for his parents (only kidding, he raised it…).</p>

<p>There are lots of reasons for assessments…to know what you know and don’t know, to understand how you think and can show what you know, to prove to others what you know. </p>

<p>I suppose for some kids taking the test might light the spark, but I suspect that if the spark isn’t there to begin with, there are others that should be lit instead…We felt this way about our son. If he had wanted to pursue this further, of course we would have supported it- but S was smart enough to know to purse his true passions and simply incorporate what he had learned about himself into his thinking.</p>

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<p>There is another avenue to enter the American Mathematics Competition if your school does not participate in the AMC tests. You can take the USAMTS tests online through the Art of Problem Solving web site. If you get a certain score on the first three rounds, you are invited to take the AIME. However, the USAMTS tests are all proof based and required a higher level of mathematical training than the AMC 10 or 12.</p>

<p>Our high school never offered the AMC before I requested them to. I brought the application to the math department and offered to pay for the tests myself. It only costs $40. The school readily agreed and turned down my offer to pay.</p>

<p>A note about the value of math competitions - My S was one of those kids that started doing competitions for fun in the 6th grade because he loved math so much. He’s now a math major at Princeton and he told me that those years of doing competitions has helped him with high level math and physics in college. He says math competitions taught him how to creatively solve problems which has helped him a great deal in tests and problem sets.</p>

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Congratulations to your son! 100 on the AMC-12 is top 5-10% (as opposed to the AMC 10 which the OPs son took and which is a little different). But you mistate my position. I tell all the kids on my math team who score 100 or better on the AMC-12 to put it on their college apps. It is a “good” score. But the merit of particular scores, or of competitions in general, is not the OP’s issue. The OP was basically asking if it is worth expending a lot of energy to raise a score of 99 on the AMC-10 in order to “look good to colleges”, and my answer was no. </p>

<p>Most colleges don’t care about AMC exams. The ones that do, like MIT, are looking for the very top math kids in the country. Those kids have typically been competition math for many years by the time they apply to colleges. Unless someone is motivated by an enjoyment of the math involved, the amount of effort it would take to try to move from a score of 100 to being one of the very top math competitors in the country in one year would be better spent on other activities.</p>

<p>Lets view this another way… a score of 100 on the AMC-12 was top 8% in a recent year. The top 8% on the math portion of the SAT was 650-699. An applicant to MIT with a math SAT score of 650-699 would be pretty ordinary in the applicant pool. A top 8% math SAT score would put you in the bottom 10-15% of people accepted to MIT (730 marks bottom quartile). Obviously other schools are going to have lower numbers than MIT, but the general message is the same - you would get more bang for your buck trying to raise a top 8% SAT math score than trying to raise a top 8% AMC-12 score. And I say that as someone who love math competitions and feels that their inherent value is high.</p>

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<p>Alumother, the AMC is a tiny little slice of reality - IMO, much less important than the math course choices and progression. What comes to mind is, why isn’t he in advanced math classes, CTY self-study, college courses, advanced math track? You could use those mom chips to facilitate the acceleration of accomplishments in the areas where you have reasonable evidence that he has unusual talent.</p>

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<p>Alumother–I am impressed that you still have “mom chips” that you can use with a high school aged son!–use them wisely. :). (My mom chips seem to run out at around age 12 or so with my kids.)</p>

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<p>texas - it really isn’t quite as crass as “look good to colleges”. It was more like tell me what this data means. I don’t want him to look to colleges like anything other than who he is. I was asking about who he is mathematically. I have my answer, to which I add my own additional mom knowledge, so I’m set.</p>

<p>Yulsie - he’s not doing anything additional because we didn’t step onto that path early enough. His progressive alternative grammar school, which went through 8th grade, taught pottery and had camping trips. They didn’t focus on academics. Was fine for D - she turned her attention to social dynamics. For S, he turned his attention to other pursuits, Pokemun, following complex sports brackets, etc. And he would rather memorize Orange County the movie than take any extra math classes. </p>

<p>He will be going to CTY this summer - I used a mom chip to have him apply, and he now actually seems excited. My theory is that I still have them because I work fulltime and so he doesn’t see so much of me:). Mstee, I do use them carefully as he is a terribly sweet and darling boy at heart, and I have to approach him carefully about all kinds of things. As I have said before, his piano teacher told us when he was little he was the most musical student she’d had in 30 years of teaching. But he hated it. And the lessons caused him to quit playing rather than to build skills. He will not take a path he hasn’t chosen, but he’s amenable to my laying out choices and he doesn’t object just to rebel.</p>

<p>Kids are complex, aren’t they? I guess that’s because people are.</p>

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<p>Alumother, which CTY course will your son be in? Mine is registered for Probability and Game Theory, session II, Lancaster.</p>

<p>Does anyone know of a good source for math competition practice tests? My son (and I) have been doing AMC8/10 and Math League sample tests from their websites for the past two evenings. We’re enjoying it, and I’d like to find a source for more for those and other competitions.</p>

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<p>In addition to the Art of Problem Solving and AMC websites, look at ARML.com. They have compiled a couple of books from their competitions, which are aimed at upper level high school students. The publisher is MathPro Press.</p>

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<p>Thank you, midwesterner. I looked at the sample problems on the ARML website, and they looked very interesting. I printed out a page for tonight’s entertainment! </p>

<p>Do you know how one goes about joining a team and participating in the exams? I looked all around the website and couldn’t find this information. My son is only 13, so I gather this is something for the future.</p>

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<p>S will be in Oceanography, in Hawaii. Hence some of the excitement:).</p>

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<p>Oceanography, in Hawaii - how could anyone resist? </p>

<p>Am I the only one who is starting to feel envious of kids these days, with CTY, math competitions, science competitions, etc.? I remember being in 4th grade and going to the public library to read the three physics books they had (meant for adults), trying to understand them, and lying awake at night thinking about relativity and trying to understand it. It would never have occurred to me to ask a teacher (nuns dealing with 60 kids/class) or a parent (10 children, no help) for help. My (all girl) HS did not offer calculus, although the comparable boys’ schools did. </p>

<p>I’d like to be re-incarnated as one of our kids. But then, I’d have to die and leave my kids - not worth it!</p>