After AOPS intro books

[Anonymous]

We have been doing AOPs books at home; intro to algebra, intro to number theory, intro to counting and probability, and intro to geometry.
In a few months, we will be done. (We are doing cover to cover, but skip some very difficult Qs).

DC is grade 6. I am wondering if the intermediate AOPS books may be too difficult for DC. Intermediate books are for high schoolers, right? Or, can you handle it if you finish the intro books?

Do you have any suggested book that can be in-between the intro and intermediate AOPs books. It may be good to do easier books for a while, but normal books like Scholastics seem too easy. Any suggestion?

[Anonymous]

Have you tried the original AoPS Volume 1 or Middle School Contest math book, which isn't AoPS but is in their bookstore?

[Anonymous]

Volume 1 and middle school contests are superfluous; not needed if the OP's kid finished all the Intro series. Also OP, there is no rigid classification between books and grades. Any kid regardless of grade can tackle material if they're ready for it and conversely there are many high schoolers who can't handle their intermediate series.

Besides the intermediate series, your kid has many other options, such as working through some of their Alcumus problems, working on past math contests, joining a math team at school if there is one, working together through a math circle book, learning programming (AoPS has an intro to python course that is quite rigorous, but your kid seems ready if they've truly completed all the intro series up through geometry).

[Anonymous]

Thanks!! All comments are very helpful.

We may try some middle school AOPS competition books. I really liked AOPS intro books, as it is designed that we can figure out by just reading/doing.
In the past, I looked at math contest Qs samples online, and thought contests are more about just calculating, but I may be wrong.

Math Circle books sounds also good, is that Moscow or Berkley? There are many publishers?

And, yes, we will consider joining math club, and DS is enjoying the coding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks!! All comments are very helpful.

We may try some middle school AOPS competition books. I really liked AOPS intro books, as it is designed that we can figure out by just reading/doing.
In the past, I looked at math contest Qs samples online, and thought contests are more about just calculating, but I may be wrong.

Math Circle books sounds also good, is that Moscow or Berkley? There are many publishers?

And, yes, we will consider joining math club, and DS is enjoying the coding.

If you google mathematical circle library you will see the site from AMS: https://bookstore.ams.org/mcl

Anna Burago's books are absolutely amazing (Mathematical Circle Diaries, vol I and II). and is probably a great complement to AoPS.

Some contests are all about calculating, but some have incredibly interesting problems. It's just a matter of picking and choosing. With the knowledge from the Intro series, your child will be now be able to appreciate many of the questions from middle school contests such as Mathcounts and the AMC 8 (and even some of the high school contests, such as AMC 10). The key is not think of it as a contest (unless he really wants to compete and time himself, etc), but mostly just browse the past papers and pick interesting questions. All past amc's and their solutions (along with multiple user submitted sols) are found for free on the aops website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have been doing AOPs books at home; intro to algebra, intro to number theory, intro to counting and probability, and intro to geometry.
In a few months, we will be done. (We are doing cover to cover, but skip some very difficult Qs).

DC is grade 6. I am wondering if the intermediate AOPS books may be too difficult for DC. Intermediate books are for high schoolers, right? Or, can you handle it if you finish the intro books?

Do you have any suggested book that can be in-between the intro and intermediate AOPs books. It may be good to do easier books for a while, but normal books like Scholastics seem too easy. Any suggestion?

How many Alcumus problems has she solved? Until she's blue on all Prealgebra, Algebra, and Geometry topics don't move on.
And don't skip the book problems - these are the problems she would be doing if she actually took a class with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Volume 1 and middle school contests are superfluous; not needed if the OP's kid finished all the Intro series. Also OP, there is no rigid classification between books and grades. Any kid regardless of grade can tackle material if they're ready for it and conversely there are many high schoolers who can't handle their intermediate series.

Besides the intermediate series, your kid has many other options, such as working through some of their Alcumus problems, working on past math contests, joining a math team at school if there is one, working together through a math circle book, learning programming (AoPS has an intro to python course that is quite rigorous, but your kid seems ready if they've truly completed all the intro series up through geometry).

On the contrary. Maybe having their kid apply some of what they've learned will help reinforce their understanding and enjoyment of math. It's not like there's a race to calculus. In fact, that's probably not in any kid's best interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have been doing AOPs books at home; intro to algebra, intro to number theory, intro to counting and probability, and intro to geometry.
In a few months, we will be done. (We are doing cover to cover, but skip some very difficult Qs).

DC is grade 6. I am wondering if the intermediate AOPS books may be too difficult for DC. Intermediate books are for high schoolers, right? Or, can you handle it if you finish the intro books?

Do you have any suggested book that can be in-between the intro and intermediate AOPs books. It may be good to do easier books for a while, but normal books like Scholastics seem too easy. Any suggestion?

How many Alcumus problems has she solved? Until she's blue on all Prealgebra, Algebra, and Geometry topics don't move on.
And don't skip the book problems - these are the problems she would be doing if she actually took a class with them.

My kid had finished both AoPS Algebra and Geometry when they were 11. They later went on to do exactly this. After they had done Alcumus sufficiently we did what another poster suggested and delved more into contest math rather than rush to intermediate algebra.

[Anonymous]

Did they really finish the books?

Is Alcumus all Blue on Hard level? Mathcounts Trainer a breeze, all 4 levels?

If so, your kid is ready to win USAMTS (at home Olympiad), get a high score on the AMC 10 in October, and qualify for USAJMO.

Anyway, if you want to move up the curriculum, obviously you can move on to the next book in the series, Intermediate Algebra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Volume 1 and middle school contests are superfluous; not needed if the OP's kid finished all the Intro series. Also OP, there is no rigid classification between books and grades. Any kid regardless of grade can tackle material if they're ready for it and conversely there are many high schoolers who can't handle their intermediate series.

Besides the intermediate series, your kid has many other options, such as working through some of their Alcumus problems, working on past math contests, joining a math team at school if there is one, working together through a math circle book, learning programming (AoPS has an intro to python course that is quite rigorous, but your kid seems ready if they've truly completed all the intro series up through geometry).

On the contrary. Maybe having their kid apply some of what they've learned will help reinforce their understanding and enjoyment of math. It's not like there's a race to calculus. In fact, that's probably not in any kid's best interest.

What are you "contrary" about? Apply what they've learned where?

Are you reflexively disagreeing without reading?

[Anonymous]

Berkeley MathnCircle handout archives.

A big messy because they are not organized and are class notes, not books, but there are some gems.

https://mathcircle.berkeley.edu/circle-archives

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Volume 1 and middle school contests are superfluous; not needed if the OP's kid finished all the Intro series. Also OP, there is no rigid classification between books and grades. Any kid regardless of grade can tackle material if they're ready for it and conversely there are many high schoolers who can't handle their intermediate series.

Besides the intermediate series, your kid has many other options, such as working through some of their Alcumus problems, working on past math contests, joining a math team at school if there is one, working together through a math circle book, learning programming (AoPS has an intro to python course that is quite rigorous, but your kid seems ready if they've truly completed all the intro series up through geometry).

On the contrary. Maybe having their kid apply some of what they've learned will help reinforce their understanding and enjoyment of math. It's not like there's a race to calculus. In fact, that's probably not in any kid's best interest.

This is what we did with our mathy kid. It worked great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did they really finish the books?

Is Alcumus all Blue on Hard level? Mathcounts Trainer a breeze, all 4 levels?

If so, your kid is ready to win USAMTS (at home Olympiad), get a high score on the AMC 10 in October, and qualify for USAJMO.

Anyway, if you want to move up the curriculum, obviously you can move on to the next book in the series, Intermediate Algebra.

I wouldn't describe it as any harder than Mathcounts trainer at the state level. Mostly just takes time and effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks!! All comments are very helpful.

We may try some middle school AOPS competition books. I really liked AOPS intro books, as it is designed that we can figure out by just reading/doing.
In the past, I looked at math contest Qs samples online, and thought contests are more about just calculating, but I may be wrong.

Math Circle books sounds also good, is that Moscow or Berkley? There are many publishers?

And, yes, we will consider joining math club, and DS is enjoying the coding.

"In the past, I looked at math contest Qs samples online, and thought contests are more about just calculating, but I may be wrong."

Definitely wrong.


Tournament of Towns, RMS contest, USAMTS, AMC, mathcounts are definitely not "just calculating".

Number Sense is about calculating, but it's a very good kind: using theorems as tricks to be quick at arithmetic and estimation, which is valuable when solving harder problems.

[Anonymous]

Also MBMT and TJIMO for locally crates contests and archives of challenging and creative problems.