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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I love AoPS. Their books are great, but once you get to the intermediate level the pacing seems off. They could stand to spend more time on some concepts that they gloss over. Now maybe it's fine if your kid happens to be that statistically rare kid that will do AIME at 13 or spends 6-8 hours a week reading math textbook each week. I don't feel it's sufficient even for very bright students at a higher level.[/quote]

You can qualify for AIME by taking a test that only covers the Intro series, so I don't see the connection between when you take AIME and the pace of the Intermediate books.

To put it differently, if you don't qualify for AIME yet, you can learn more from the Intro books before attempting the Intermediate books. [b]If you don't fully learn the Intro material, that may be why the Intro books seem too easy and the Intermediate books seem too hard. [/b]

If you are trying to track school curriculum but a bit better, then you can skip a LOT of the Intermediate books content, a still learn plenty more than school teaches.  Which is fine. The books intentionally have a very high ceiling. It's easier to skip stuff you don't want than go find something you don't have. [/quote]

PP with the kid who started qualifying for AIME in 6th grade here.  The bolded is key.  100%.  A second pass through of the material is a great idea, unless the kid is breezing through all of hte problems the first time.  One of the ways I approached the AoPS books was to have my kid read the chapter and do all of the non challenge problems on the first pass through the book.  Then, on the second pass through, re-read the chapter contents and then do the challenge problems.  [b]The other thing is that if your kid is relatively young and generally has breezed through math, it's important to make sure they're not trying to run away from the sections that are particularly challenging to them.[/b]  The AoPS website has a very active forum, and it's perfectly fine to ask for help with understanding concepts.  [/quote]

Agree with the bold part, it is a fine balance. [/quote]

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