AMC8 Participation
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Anonymous
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If they are offering it at school, go ahead and take it. It is a one time test of 45 minutes.
If they score low, it's no big deal. |
Anonymous
OK. You are still driving in a car to go somewhere to do something you can do at home, to be told what you already know, that the kid is pretty good at math but still has plenty of room for growth. It was different when we were kids and we didn't have all these different math contests available and online, and all the training material free online and in classes. The AMC 8 is mainly practice for the AMC 10. Doing 2 additional years of test-condition practice is not really helpful. The 25th %ile score for 6th graders (and 18%ile for 8th graders) on the AMC 8 is 5. That's the same score you get for Christmas treeing the answer sheet. 25% of test takers score lower than guessing blindly! This is not a good use of their time to go out of their way for. https://amc-reg.maa.org/reports /generalreports.aspx The RSM math contest is online and you can do it in the comfort of your own home. The key to doing eventually well is in focusing on learning the material first, not competing before you are prepared. A 14- at home won't turn into a 15+ on test day. It will be more like a 10-. But hey, I guess if more people take the contest and get lower scores, more kids with medium-high scores will get %ile honor role awards. Anyway, dear OP, you can avoid this whole controversy by studying and practicing to get to 15+ in home practice 
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Anonymous
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Dont listen to PP. Anything above 10 is a great score - most elementary schools have only 1 - 2 6th graders that score higher than a 10.
As another PP said, a 15+ (or 20+) might indicate that your DS is underserved currently and needs to be accelerated more. But a 10 in 6th grade is nothing to sneeze at. |
Anonymous
| The domestic RSM is online at home. If you score high enough on that test you are eligible to take the international test, which was in person only last year. That was the most challenging test we have seen. DS earned honorable mention on the test for 5th and 6th graders. I have not compared the questions on the AMC 8 and the RSM International. |
Anonymous
| Thank you for the responses. This is the first competition that we saw that had a grade associated with it and I know people here have experience with it. DS does enjoy competitions but they have all been for his grade or a two year band, 3-4 or 5-6 type thing. |
Anonymous
The competition won't be until mid January, so your son has a lot of time to prepare. It looks like the RSM contest has harder questions, but also a lot more time per question. I wouldn't be surprised if RSM hosts the AMC8, so you can probably take it there. |
Anonymous
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OP with an update:
DS took the AMC 8 as a 6th grader. He scored 17-19 on three practice tests. He scored an 18 on this years test, so he made the honor roll. He enjoyed the practice tests and is already eyeing the AMC 10 for next year. |
Anonymous
Why? He has so much room to grow in AMC 8 and he's eligible for another 2 years. |
pettifogger
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A couple of reasons: Doing very well on the AMC 10 (or the AMC 12) leads to a path to the Olympiad (via the AIME, USA(J)MO, MOSP, etc). The AMC 8 does not have anything after it. Alternatively, (and more importantly) practicing AMC 10 problems would allow him to extend his range on the AMC 8 (i.e have a better shot at solving the most difficult AMC 8 problems, #20-25), as well as improve on other contests such as Mathcounts, etc. |
Anonymous
He will do both. He is realizing that he can handle some of what is on the 10 and it is a challenge. He likes the challenge so why not? It will give him something to work on during the summer after camps, pool, and vacation. He likes walking through different solutions with his dad. |
Anonymous
Why not? What possible down side could there be for letting a kid who enjoys math contests take a math contest? It's not like he has to pick either the 8 or the 10. He can take both. |
Anonymous
That's excellent! Does he plan to take the AMC 8 this year to shoot for the honor roll (19 or higher in 2022) or distinguished honor roll (22 or higher in 2022)? If he wants to prepare for the AMC, check out Alcumus and the AoPS books, specifically prealgebra or introduction to algebra |
Anonymous
He scored an 18 this year, which is the honor roll cut off. He does RSM's math competition class. We are looking at AoPS's summer program because the times work better then RSMs for his camp schedule. He will do the AMC 8 and 10 next year, aiming for DHR on the 8. |
Anonymous
Is this true? My DS (6th) took it and got a 12. Knowing nothing about the test, I thought that was terrible score. He did no prep and isn’t enrolled in any outside math classes. |
Anonymous
AMC 8 is a test for kids up to 8th grade which covers topics covered in math through 8th grade. A 6th grader in AAP or Advanced Math would have covered some of 7th grade math at the time of the test so they should not be expected to know all the material. Your child's score of a 12 is just below the cut off for the top 25% of the kids who took the test. I would say that is pretty darn solid. I am not sure why there are public ES schools in the area who offer the AMC 8 because the kids I would expect to do well on it are either accelerated into Algebra 1 in 7th grade, which is a small group of kids, or they are taking outside enrichment and have been exposed to more advanced math. My kid enjoys his math competition class so I am not surprised that he scored an 18. He said that he wishes they had covered the geometry in his class a week earlier because he would have gotten a few more correct on the AMC 8. His class is geared towards prepping for AMC 8 and starting to look at AMC 10. The link below will hopefully take you to the score distribution for this years test. https://maa.edvistas.com/eduview/report.aspx?self=&view=1561&mode=6&sortCols=&pagerNum=1&pagerIteration=0&pagerIds=1769×tamp=20240228131959905 DHR, top 1%: 22 Top 2.5%: 20 Top 5%: 18 Top 25% 13 Top 50%: 10 Top 75%: 8 The Average score was a 10.75 High score was a 25 Standard Deviation was 4.13 Total Students: 80685 |