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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]AMC8 is targeted at students who are enrolled in prealgebra or higher.

There is an honor roll for 6th graders who score 15+ out of 25. (But AMC honor rolls are secret now, so that's not very exciting anymore.)

If s student is not scoring at least 15 on a practice test, I wouldn't go chasing down a random site to test at. But you should encourage your school to offer the contest to all the students.

[/quote]
6th grade AAP math is basically prealgebra and should suffice.

I disagree about needing a 15 on practice tests.  If OP's kid tries a practice test and enjoys it, there's no problem with finding a random testing site to take the test.  There's no need to meet an arbitrary benchmark, and the AMC tests are supposed to be open to anyone who wants to take them.

[/quote]

It's not a social /  team activity. What's important about going out of your way to get an official score 2 years early? Is sitting quietly in a random classroom more fun than sitting at home?

You can do an extra practice test in the time it takes to commute back and forth to the testing site, then chat about the problems. 
[/quote]

It isn't 2 years early.  AMC8 is for kids in 8th grade and under.  It's not specifically for 8th graders.  For the 2022 contest, only about 40% of the participants were 8th graders.  About 27% were 6th grade and under.  Mocking contests at home is not at all the same as taking them in person.  If OP's kid eventually wants to do well, he would be better served by taking actual contests than just practicing them at home.  [/quote]

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 :-)[/quote]

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