On Tuesday, February 6th at 8 am, one hundred and eight Choate students sat down to take the American Mathematics Competition. This was the second lowest number of competitors from Choate in the past eight years. However, it is still a significant number of the 850 students who make up the community.
“Overall, turnout was good; many students who aren’t on the math team decided to take the contest. It’s really a great learning experience for anyone who likes a challenge,” said captain of the Math Team, Jeff Rosen ’07.
Over 150,000 students across the nation took the AMC 10 and 12. Several participants competed with the goal of scoring high enough to be invited to take the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination), the next round of the competition. Approximately 15,000 students nationwide are invited each year to participate in this contest. In order to receive an invitation, AMC participants must score a minimum of 100 out of 150 points on the AMC 12 or 120 out of 150 on the AMC 10, which is an easier version of the AMC 12 designed for younger students.
Both the AMC 10 and 12 are composed of twenty-five multiple-choice questions that are intended to be completed within a seventy-five minute time limit. Students receive six points for each correct answer, one and a half points for questions left blank, and no points for incorrect answers.
The AMC is designed to engender a passion in students for pursuing mathematics in order to enhance their problem solving skills, and to recognize those students with exceptional mathematical talent. Though this contest is not the only way to determine this, it provides a helpful indicator. The problem difficulty ranges from very manageable problems in the beginning of the contest to some that are exceptionally difficult by the end. Many Choate students who took the test found it to be quite difficult and explained that they had to apply their analytical skills very effectively by the end of the test.
“The problems at the end of the test can be brutal, so it’s important to try to do the easy ones fast so that you have enough time for the hard ones,” said chief resident mathlete Rosen.
According to Mr. David Doster, who organizes the competition on campus, forty-eight students qualified for the AIME last year.
