🦫 Upstate NY Math Team: reporting from CUBRMC!

Japheth Wood

Oct 26, 2024

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Upstate New York Math Team

Mathematical Problem Solving

Dear Upstate New York Math Team,

I'm here in Ithaca with many Upstate New York Math Team members, enjoying a beautiful Saturday at the 2nd Cornell University Big Red Math Competition (CUBRMC). Most of our students are competing with their school or local math team, and several have joined together on one of the 3 Upstate New York Math Teams. The contest problems have been engaging and challenging so far. The final results won’t be ready until the end of the contest in several hours.

It’s time to start our Practices! I hope you will join us next Sunday, November 3, for a welcome back and introductory session. Coach Villani has offered to review the hardest problems from the 2024 ARML session, problems that few or none of our teammates solved.

We will follow that up in a later Practice Sessions reviews of this year’s CUBRMC problems, and the AMC problems. Stay tuned for dates.

Happy Mathing!

Japheth

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Japheth Wood is a coach for the Upstate New York Math Team and also a math professor at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

^*For our purposes, Upstate New York refers to that part of New York State which lies outside of Long Island and New York City. Are you not an Upstate New Yorker? We welcome you to join us at our training sessions, but can’t invite you to be part of our geographically-defined teams at ARML and other contests.

Upcoming Practices

1. Sunday, November 3, 8:30am - 10:00am: Welcome Back, Introductions, and a review of the hardest problems from the 2024 ARML contest.

Zoom: Click Here (https://bard.zoom.us/j/82682517748?pwd=y9JLpHLkj58ZhysTtIzUtHjWBty1ID.1)

2. Review of CUBRMC 2024 Problems. Details TBA

3. Review of AMC 10/12 A & B Problems. (To maintain contest security, we remind all students not to discuss AMC problems until after 8 a.m. Eastern Time the day following the contest.) Details TBA

We hope you will join us!

Reminder: Please get ahold of a copy of Paul Zeitz’s Art and Craft of Problem Solving book, which we will use as a common text this year.

AMC 10/12 and 8

We recommend these individual contests very highly, so make sure to sign up at your school. The AMC (American Mathematics Competition) is a program of the MAA (Math Association of America), a professional society of mathematicians. The questions are always interesting, challenging, and enjoyable.

AMC 10A and 12A contests: Wednesday, November 6, 2024

AMC 10B and 12B contests: Tuesday, November 12, 2024.

Students do not register directly with the AMC, but arrange to take the AMC contests through their contest manager, typically a math teacher at their school.

I wrote the following to students who will take the AMC contests at Bard College:

Is this your first AMC contest? If so, then I recommend that you set a goal practice a little in advance, to enjoy the challenging AMC problems, and look forward to the new mathematical topics you'll be exposed to. Don't focus on your numerical score. About a week after the contest, review your work and the solutions that will then be available.

Have you already taken an AMC contest? Then you might look at your score this year as a rough measure of how you've grown mathematically in the past year. Right now could be time to practice on several old contests, and also to read some math books to expand your background knowledge.

Are you focused on improving your score and perhaps moving on to the invitational contests like the AIME and USA(J)MO? There is not much time left before the contest.

Figure out a guessing strategy. Each correct answer earns you 6 points, each answer left blank earns you 1.5 points, and each a wrong answer is 0 points. Can you elminate a choice and thus have a better chance at guessing correctly?
Decide when to bubble. Will you fill in the ovals with your answers on the answer sheet as you go along, or to mark your answers informally on the problem sheet, and then reserve the last 5 minutes of the contest to complete the answer sheet?
Get organized with your scratch paper! Use one page for each problem and write the problem number in the top left corner as you get to work. Write neatly. Return to each problem to check your answer or work on it a little more. Can you arrange to have at least 25 pages of scratch paper?
You have a whole year before the 2025 AMC contests. It's more valuable to make a deep dive and really learn the mathematical topics than to rely on the testing strategies above. Some students systematically work through all the past problems, and then work through them again. Expect to learn a lot of math, and to see your scores improve significantly, if you do so.
Are you taking both an A and a B contest? That's exciting! Your experience on the first contest could give you some ideas on what to expect for the second one, less than a week later.
Think of the AMC 10/12 as composed of five 5-question contests. The first 5 problems are hard, the second 5 problems are even harder, and by the fifth 5 problems, the challenge level is intense, and are intended for just the top students across the country. If you are doing great in your math class at school, then you are ready for the first and the second sets of 5 problems. A score around 50 points is absolutely amazing for your first time! It's okay to read and try all the questions, but prioritize solving the first 10 problems and carefully checking your answers. Students who solve more than 10 problems typically have practiced past contest problems and/or have gone deeper with their math studies either through independent study or enrichment classes. Students who can solve any of the last 5 problems under time pressure have likely practiced contest problem solving for several years.

Practice old AMC 12 problems on the Art of Problem Solving Wiki!

AMC 12 Archive

Practice old AMC 10 problems on the Art of Problem Solving Wiki!

AMC 10 Archive

We will request your AMC 10/12 scores when you apply to be on the Upstate New York ARML Team.