How hard is Alcumus for your child?
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Anonymous
| How hard is Alcumus for your child and where are they math wise? I (an adult with an engineering degree) started doing some geometry problems and after around 15 problems I got stumped. Couldn't solve the problem in half an hour. There seems to be many more harder problems ahead. Who are the kids who can solve these problems? |
Anonymous
My kid took AP calc in 8th grade and was already qualifying for AIME in 6th. When he was at the Algebra, Geometry, etc. levels, he probably couldn't solve around 10% of the problems. Keep in mind that part of the point for Alcumus is to struggle on some fraction of the problems and then either ask for help in the forums, or give up on the problem but read the solution to understand it. No matter how smart the kid is, they shouldn't expect to be able to solve all of the problems. It's also possible to change the difficulty level of the problems. |
Anonymous
| Thank you. I wanted to enroll my child in AoPS but Alcumus got me worried. |
pettifogger
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I wouldn't worry much about it. As others above said, it's a great resource with a huge range of difficulty on the problems. But most importantly, in your child's case (and yours as well), it's actually more efficient to work systematically through the AoPS geometry book. After that, many of the geometry Alcumus problems become quite doable. It's not a surprise that you are hitting a wall relatively quickly but that is only because you are attacking them cold without having a math contest background and/or training. As you get used to the various types of techniques and ideas, they become quite manageable. Again, I'd highly recommend working through the book first, as it's really fantastic. Alcumus works best when you are already somewhat familiar with the topic, so you could then use it as a source of extra problems. |
Anonymous
| Thank you very much. I was once quite good at math competitions, I knew a few tricks, and I was surprised I hit the wall so quickly. I was going through this with my child - he was doing the problems and I helped him when he got stuck. Until I got stuck myself. So my worry now is that he won't be able to handle AoPS class. School math is easy for him; we tried RSM this summer and it is very repetitive and a lot of kids struggle even with that. So he clearly needs something more challenging. I know RSM has more challenging classes but it sounds like it will take some time to qualify for those and he already lost a lot of time. Thus AoPS. |
pettifogger
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I think he will be ok with AoPS provided he has a couple of hours per week to work on the concepts he learns by reading the book/practicing problems. I assume he's taking the geometry class, which is significantly more challenging than the other introductory AoPS courses. However, it does start from the very beginning and does not assume anything more advanced than some algebra (i.e Pythagorean theorem, radicals, and a bit of quadratics/factoring but not too much). AoPS is also much higher ceiling as it is focused on developing deeper problem solving skills; this means there is lots of wiggle room where an 'A' could mean just being able to solve around 60-70% of the material. For some students this is great, as the focus is not on minimizing silly mistakes and being "perfect" on one/two step problems, but rather focusing on the higher order thinking needed to solve more difficult problems. I believe that as an engineer you'll quickly find the AoPS type of thinking very closely related to what you're used to in the real world. One of the main goals of AoPS courses is to teach students to take basic tools and use them effectively to solve many problems in a variety of ways. So rather than introducing a whole bunch of tricks/formulas for various types of problems, AoPS prefers to focus on a smaller set of ideas/principles and show how to apply them to a wide variety of problems. In this way students develop flexibility and creative approaches to problems, to the point where eventually they become comfortable with working on problems they don't (initially) know how to solve. In my opinion, this approach is super valuable because it's very transferable to many other areas in STEM and also beyond. |
Anonymous
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1st PP here. My kids took several years at the AoPS academy and several more online. For both of these options, the important thing to remember is that AoPS, like math contests, does not run on a 90/80/70 scale. In school, 80% is a poor grade for a bright kid. At AoPS, it's a strong score.
They want the classes to be challenging, even for extremely bright kids. They want the kids to struggle a little, play with the math a bit to see if they can come up with new approaches, ask teachers for help, or even brainstorm with fellow students. If your child takes the online classes, they hold office hours and the TAs are very responsive on the message board for the class. Other kids will also ask questions and try to help yours if yours asks. If your child takes the in person class, the teachers there will be able to answer questions before or after class if your child is confused. Your child can still post on the general AoPS forums for help. The biggest issue your child might have is if he freaks out a bit over not finding it easy or not getting almost all of the problems correct. You'll just need to work with him to adjust expectations a bit. Also, FWIW, it's not like every Alcumus problem is carefully selected for each section. Many of them are very tricky math competition problems that were slotted into Alcumus. It's a great tool for preparing for contests, but it not necessarily representative of the material that your child should have mastered in the class. |
Anonymous
| Thank you. This was very informative. I love AoPS approach. My child is not one of those who do math for pleasure, but he does learn quickly and doesn't resist math (a success in itself). He did Beast Academy on occasion when younger, but I got complacent with his math education (relied too much on a weak school curriculum) and now he needs to catch up with the problem solving. |
Anonymous
Thank you very much. I embrace this philosophy wholeheartedly, my only worry is if my child is ready for it. I believe it's very important to learn to work on harder problems and to try several different approaches. Don't give up just because your first idea didn't work. Even if they don't help solve that particular problem, those ideas might come handy with another problem. You are still learning and reinforcing your knowledge base. I don't like that school problems are too easy for my child and that they got accustomed to expect 100%. Yet, knowing all that, I have still been lulled into complacence by their school grades. Now we are working on some of the harder problems and there are tantrums almost every day ("I am stupid"). Hopefully AoPS won't be worse than that  .
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Anonymous
| Alcumus should be adaptive, so set the difficulty to easy and if you get a problem wrong move on |
Anonymous
I'm with you - I got stomped on a couple of geometry problems, too. Resorted to writing a numerical approximation program using binary search, converted the answer back to radicals, then we turned in the answer and read the solution. Then realized that I wouldn't have seen the answer even if I'd spent 5 hours on it. That's because some problems are drawn from the last five in AMC10/12. Practice helps though. |
Anonymous
| Even if you set the difficulty lower, the program will occasionally give you Level 25 "review" problems. These are usually really nasty. I'd just set a time or level limit with my kid, where if the level of the problem is higher than whatever, or if the kid spends more than 10 minutes on the problem but isn't close to solving it, you just give up and read the solution. Trying to understand and work through the alcumus provided solution is another great way to learn math. |
Anonymous
AoPS is pretty reasonable especially at the intro level like Algebra and Geometry. |
Anonymous
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Alcumus is like chess. The target success rate is 50%.
The problems are rated based on past player performance. If you do better than 50%, it's just going to give you harder problems until you get them wrong, or until you are better at solving problems than almost everyone who has ever done Alcumus, including many to most national math champions of the past 15 years. |
Anonymous
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Here is something interesting. My DD was assigned Alcumus for summer work. She mastered all of what was assigned in a month by working her butt off and using tons of external research. Some of the problems and concepts Alcumus calls Intro to Algebra are categorized as Pre-Calculus Functions in Khan Academy.
So honestly I have no idea what level she is really working at. She is quite good at math an in the top class in a nonDC private school. |