When do AMC 8 results come out? Should I push my dd to do better next year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It takes a great parent or coach to recognize not just current performance, but the potential for even greater achievements. That’s how excellence is nurtured—through a bit of encouragement to push beyond the comfort zone.

Thanks! Will continue to do that.

The results are out. She did worse than my estimation. But I’m glad that she texted me “I did really bad in the test”. Well, that rarely happens so the awareness and willingness to communicate made me happy. I’ll ask her to spend more time to prepare for the next year. My goal is for her to see hard work pays off and of course to lay a better math foundation. If she does not make it to honor in 8th grade, we will not try amc10 if she agrees. And I’m ok with it. At least she tried. A journey for me to learn about her potential.

How did you get the results? From the teacher or through the website?

[Anonymous]

Focusing on contests is the wrong approach. Is she in her school's math club? Has she joined a local math circle? Gaining enthusiasm and confidence through participating in either of those would be a much better first step than prepping for a contest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It takes a great parent or coach to recognize not just current performance, but the potential for even greater achievements. That’s how excellence is nurtured—through a bit of encouragement to push beyond the comfort zone.

Thanks! Will continue to do that.

The results are out. She did worse than my estimation. But I’m glad that she texted me “I did really bad in the test”. Well, that rarely happens so the awareness and willingness to communicate made me happy. I’ll ask her to spend more time to prepare for the next year. My goal is for her to see hard work pays off and of course to lay a better math foundation. If she does not make it to honor in 8th grade, we will not try amc10 if she agrees. And I’m ok with it. At least she tried. A journey for me to learn about her potential.

The AMC8 has been getting harder and harder. You/She should expect to score 5 less than practices. That said, anything over 10 is great for kids below 8th grade, and a bit of studying will get her the honor roll next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Focusing on contests is the wrong approach. Is she in her school's math club? Has she joined a local math circle? Gaining enthusiasm and confidence through participating in either of those would be a much better first step than prepping for a contest.

Dont exclude contests. A diverse approach is more effective—get involved in everything available: contests, clubs, circles, online programs, and more. Kids pick up knowledge in various ways, and it all adds up over time.

[Anonymous]

Competition math is different than match from school. The kids who do well on the math competitions are kids who are strong in math AND study competition math.

If you want her to do well on the AMC type competitions, you need to be looking at studying for those problems. DS math competition class teaches Algebra, Geometry, number theory, probability and other math skills. All of those appear on the AMC 8.

You could be negatively impacting her math confidence by having her take tests that are meant for later grades without preparing her for what is on the tests.

[Anonymous]

On this forum, some people, envious of parents of advanced students, use the word "push" to describe "effective parenting." This jealousy does two things: it leads to assumptions that the other parent must be doing something more effective or better, without giving them credit, and it suggests that the advanced student couldn’t be pursuing their achievements out of personal interest. All of this could be avoided by simply minding their own business, but some just can’t help themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Competition math is different than match from school. The kids who do well on the math competitions are kids who are strong in math AND study competition math.

If you want her to do well on the AMC type competitions, you need to be looking at studying for those problems. DS math competition class teaches Algebra, Geometry, number theory, probability and other math skills. All of those appear on the AMC 8.

You could be negatively impacting her math confidence by having her take tests that are meant for later grades without preparing her for what is on the tests.

Most advanced students are ready for math that is couple of grades higher, and which is what most enrichment centers offer as advanced grade level math, where a six grader learns seventh or eight grade math. Competition math prep comes after that, not instead of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Focusing on contests is the wrong approach. Is she in her school's math club? Has she joined a local math circle? Gaining enthusiasm and confidence through participating in either of those would be a much better first step than prepping for a contest.

Dont exclude contests. A diverse approach is more effective—get involved in everything available: contests, clubs, circles, online programs, and more. Kids pick up knowledge in various ways, and it all adds up over time.

I'm not excluding contests. My kid loves competitions. I think OP has the sequencing wrong. Pushing the kid to hardcore prep for a competition if the kid isn't already enjoying a math club/math circle/AoPS class/RSM class/whatever seems like a bad call. OP should get the kid to look into and hopefully enjoy math that is more challenging than school math before pushing competitions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On this forum, some people, envious of parents of advanced students, use the word "push" to describe "effective parenting." This jealousy does two things: it leads to assumptions that the other parent must be doing something more effective or better, without giving them credit, and it suggests that the advanced student couldn’t be pursuing their achievements out of personal interest. All of this could be avoided by simply minding their own business, but some just can’t help themselves.

But sometimes pushing is just pushing and not at all effective parenting. Effective parenting is putting your kid in a lot of activities, following the kid's passions, helping the kid set their own goals, and then pushing the kid to take the steps necessary to achieve them. Effective parenting might also include putting a kid in outside enrichment if the subject is important to you.

Signing a kid up for a competition in an area in which they show little passion and lack a reasonable foundation, having the kid do somewhat poorly, and then deciding that you need to make the kid practice more and try harder without addressing the kid's interest or foundational knowledge isn't effective parenting. It's just pushing.

I hope OP takes all of this to heart. OP's kid is unlikely do do well next year on AMC 8 if she isn't getting some sort of outside foundation, whether it's through RSM, AoPS, her school's math club, the local math circle, or whatever. She's also unlikely to do well or practice effectively if she isn't especially interested in the math.

[Anonymous]

Op here. She has finished algebra 1&2, counting & probability. So I don’t think I got the sequence wrong. She’s got the concept, but admittedly, the foundation could be more solid.
Of course I encouraged her to join clubs, she doesn’t want to. Not sure if it is typical, but she refuses to do things if she doesn’t think she would among the top. I’ve told her it’s more about learning experience and making friends than being on top, but unfortunately, she doesn’t see it that way.
For extracurricular, similarly, she quitted everything she can’t do well especially if it involves competition. She pretty much avoids things that are challenging for her. Meanwhile, She is 99 or 98 percentile in all the tests (IOWA, Cogat, etc), so I know she is smart. That’s why I wanted to “push” her to work a little harder. AMC 8 honor roll is more like a milestone she could reach. Otherwise, she would be very happy with doing 0 clubs, 0 extracurricular, 0 AOPS, getting home at 3, reading her books and going to bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But sometimes pushing is just pushing and not at all effective parenting. Effective parenting is putting your kid in a lot of activities, following the kid's passions, helping the kid set their own goals, and then pushing the kid to take the steps necessary to achieve them. Effective parenting might also include putting a kid in outside enrichment if the subject is important to you.

Signing a kid up for a competition in an area in which they show little passion and lack a reasonable foundation, having the kid do somewhat poorly, and then deciding that you need to make the kid practice more and try harder without addressing the kid's interest or foundational knowledge isn't effective parenting. It's just pushing.

I hope OP takes all of this to heart. OP's kid is unlikely do do well next year on AMC 8 if she isn't getting some sort of outside foundation, whether it's through RSM, AoPS, her school's math club, the local math circle, or whatever. She's also unlikely to do well or practice effectively if she isn't especially interested in the math.

See my reply above. Maybe you have not met a student that shows no passion for anything. By the way, she doesn’t hate math at all. She just doesn’t know what she likes. She hasn’t been on any math clubs before 7th grade because her ES doesn’t offer any. She missed the deadline for tryout the mathcount team at her MS. So yes, the only thing we could do this year is to have her try amc 8. Well, if she should not try amc 8, according to the score distribution, you would conclude at least half of the kids should not try because they are not ready and they must be forced by their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. She has finished algebra 1&2, counting & probability. So I don’t think I got the sequence wrong. She’s got the concept, but admittedly, the foundation could be more solid.
Of course I encouraged her to join clubs, she doesn’t want to. Not sure if it is typical, but she refuses to do things if she doesn’t think she would among the top. I’ve told her it’s more about learning experience and making friends than being on top, but unfortunately, she doesn’t see it that way.
For extracurricular, similarly, she quitted everything she can’t do well especially if it involves competition. She pretty much avoids things that are challenging for her. Meanwhile, She is 99 or 98 percentile in all the tests (IOWA, Cogat, etc), so I know she is smart. That’s why I wanted to “push” her to work a little harder. AMC 8 honor roll is more like a milestone she could reach. Otherwise, she would be very happy with doing 0 clubs, 0 extracurricular, 0 AOPS, getting home at 3, reading her books and going to bed.

I don’t understand how she has completed the math you say she has and not hitting honor roll already. I am guessing you are using AoPS online or books or something along those lines.

I get wanting to see your kid stretch and grow but it doesn’t seem like what you are doing is working. She should be scoring better if she has completed and understood the material you are saying she has completed. The fact that she didn’t tells me she either didn’t try on the test, intentionally flopped the test, or never learned what you thought she did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But sometimes pushing is just pushing and not at all effective parenting. Effective parenting is putting your kid in a lot of activities, following the kid's passions, helping the kid set their own goals, and then pushing the kid to take the steps necessary to achieve them. Effective parenting might also include putting a kid in outside enrichment if the subject is important to you.

Signing a kid up for a competition in an area in which they show little passion and lack a reasonable foundation, having the kid do somewhat poorly, and then deciding that you need to make the kid practice more and try harder without addressing the kid's interest or foundational knowledge isn't effective parenting. It's just pushing.

I hope OP takes all of this to heart. OP's kid is unlikely do do well next year on AMC 8 if she isn't getting some sort of outside foundation, whether it's through RSM, AoPS, her school's math club, the local math circle, or whatever. She's also unlikely to do well or practice effectively if she isn't especially interested in the math.

See my reply above. Maybe you have not met a student that shows no passion for anything. By the way, she doesn’t hate math at all. She just doesn’t know what she likes. She hasn’t been on any math clubs before 7th grade because her ES doesn’t offer any. She missed the deadline for tryout the mathcount team at her MS. So yes, the only thing we could do this year is to have her try amc 8. Well, if she should not try amc 8, according to the score distribution, you would conclude at least half of the kids should not try because they are not ready and they must be forced by their parents.

Honestly, I am surprised at the number of kids who take the AMCs because the low scores show that most are not prepared for them.

They are not a normal 8th graders did better math test. There is more to them, a lot more. There is a reason why math programs have classes for these exams.

I have a co-worker who graduated from MIT who told me you could easily tell the difference between this students who had been competition math strong and regular math strong, the thought process is different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. She has finished algebra 1&2, counting & probability. So I don’t think I got the sequence wrong. She’s got the concept, but admittedly, the foundation could be more solid.
Of course I encouraged her to join clubs, she doesn’t want to. Not sure if it is typical, but she refuses to do things if she doesn’t think she would among the top. I’ve told her it’s more about learning experience and making friends than being on top, but unfortunately, she doesn’t see it that way.
For extracurricular, similarly, she quitted everything she can’t do well especially if it involves competition. She pretty much avoids things that are challenging for her. Meanwhile, She is 99 or 98 percentile in all the tests (IOWA, Cogat, etc), so I know she is smart. That’s why I wanted to “push” her to work a little harder. AMC 8 honor roll is more like a milestone she could reach. Otherwise, she would be very happy with doing 0 clubs, 0 extracurricular, 0 AOPS, getting home at 3, reading her books and going to bed.

what do you mean by "push"?
1) "force her" to do something hates doing
OR 2) "encourage her" to take on the next level of challenge within her ability

[Anonymous]

I received my child’s AMC 8 score from the AAP coordinator at his middle school. I believe they only send out emails when the kids earn honors etc.