<p>I heard the AIME is 1@$<em>&!@$@!</em>(_$^@!($@! hard. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>bring a pillow and get in some good nap time. that’s what i plan to do.</p>
<p>sample tests are available here for practice:
<a href=“http://www.kalva.demon.co.uk/aime.html[/url]”>http://www.kalva.demon.co.uk/aime.html</a></p>
<p>I’ve barely qualified and I’m…scared! Hmm… GOal: To not get a 0!</p>
<p>Hmm… I’ve just taken a glimpse through some past problems (a couple seem to be solvable by pure brute force taking over a span of a long time). Perhaps is it possible to get a 1 or 2 by using brute force on a couple of the problems? :P</p>
<p>dude, and no calculators… no calculators… oh noes…</p>
<p>It’s scary to think there are actually people out there that get 10’s and the like on it.</p>
<p>if you are using brute force, you’ve probably overlooked some trick that would make it a zillion times easier.</p>
<p>Which is why I got such borderline scores in the AMCs - I used brute force too much and overlooked shortcuts. But as I looked at some of the questions again, I found how easy they were. Had I not used brute force, I may have scored 15 right and 10 blank (assuming no stupid mistakes and ample checking), leaving a score of 115!</p>
<p>On the other hand, if there are no problems left one could understand, no problems left to check, and one’s pretty much out of strategies, then one probably should use brute force rather than nothing. Brute force should be the last resort strategy.</p>
<p>Yeah, I qualified for the AIME with a score of 101 on AMC 12b, lol. athlonmj’s idea about how to take the test was the best one I’ve heard thus far. I was planning on answering the answers completely sarcastically, like, SNL Celebrity Jeopardy style…</p>
<p>How are you going to do that? I mean, the answers are all numbers between 0 and 999.</p>
<p>Question: can one take both the AIME I and the AIME II?</p>
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<p>no, only one. And it has to be the AIME I unless there is a specific reason why a school or student cannot do it on that date (school’s out for spring break, studetn gets sick, etc.). You can’t choose AIME II just because you would like more time to prepare, for instance.</p>
<p>how do they score on the AIME? What’s like the cutline?</p>
<p>“You can’t choose AIME II just because you would like more time to prepare, for instance.”</p>
<p>How about, students get sick on purpose? =)</p>
<p>Oh and simfish, I used brute force to solve 8 questions on the AIME, though it takes waaaay longer than 3 hours, and actually, I see no point in doing so. Tricks makes everything so much easier.</p>
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<p>well, they don’t require a doctor’s note. But the school would have to pay an extra fee (something like $35) for a student to take a make-up on the second date, arrange and pay for a proctor, and then pay to have the answer sheet returned by FedEx or similar. If you feigned illness, or even had a real illness, there would be a risk that your school would just say “tough luck”. </p>
<p>AMC needs for most people to take the AIME on the first date so they have time to get them all graded and figure out who the potential USAMO qualifiers are. Then they only have to process a fairly small number of exams on the second date and add those folks to the list. They actively discourage the second date. I don’t know if this was by design, but last year, the average score was a little higher on the first date than on the second. It was a little harder for people taking the AIME II to qualify for the USAMO.</p>
<p>Thanks Texas137! However, AIME I seems to be extremely early this year. If I recall correctly, AIME I was toward the end of March last year.</p>
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<p>The AMC10/12 and AIMEs are two weeks earlier this year than last, and USAMO and MOP (at least for the top 12) are one week earlier. This gives USAMO qualifiers an extra week to prepare, and their schools a little extra time to set up testing conditions. They also made MOP start one week early for the top 12, who now have an extra week of training. They probably counted backwards from one of these higher levels in order to work out all the dates we’re concerned with now.</p>
<p>Hmm. So what should I do if I’m stuck, cannot find any tricks, but still see some way to pile up all of the numbers and test them one by one? (and I only anticipate myself getting a 2 on the AIME at the very best, since I’m not so strong on math).</p>
<p>ANd yay - I might get a 1 - the first question doesn’t look so difficult! (and most of them do seem solvable by brute force, although of course, it should be used last).</p>
<p>brute force is certainly better than an empty answer sheet. As long as you understand that AIME problems almost all have some trick that makes brute force unnecessary, you can make an intelligent decision about when to resort to it. Also, don’t use up all of your time on brute force solutions to one or two problems at the beginning of the test before you look at all of the problems to see if there are any you can solve more efficiently. Generally, the problems are easier at the beginning and harder at the end. But don’t rely on that. There may be a problem in the last 5 that is easy for you because you happen to see the key to it. You don’t want to lose a chance at at easy solution to #12 because you spent all 3 hours cranking out 500 possible permutations in order to get a brute force answer to number 1.</p>
<p>The more past AIME problems you’ve seen (with solutions), the easier it is to think of an elegant approach when faced with new AIME problems. You sort of get the hang of thinking in the way that AIME is looking for (and which is different from most of the problem-solving required in regular courses).</p>