Anonymous
Post 01/07/2020 10:14     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:It's not that trainable, though. Nationally, there were 143 perfect scores. In VA, there were 5. There are a lot more than 143 kids in the country who are brilliant at math, practiced a lot, and wanted perfect scores. Every kid with a perfect score is exceptional at math AND spent a lot of time practicing.

The 4th and 5th graders who do well are already taking algebra or geometry.

It's somewhat like the SAT - highly preppable, but very few kids can be prepped to a perfect score.


Not many kids have math competitions on their radar. It’s only popular in some school districts. I would say a very, very small percentage of schools even participate. Those schools that seem to really push the competitions have kids who score high. Go figure.

No one ever wants to admit this but the AMC is definitely a test you can figure out with practice. Now if a kid is figuring out the tricks on his own that’s talent. I say this as a parent of a child who is great at math, algebra I before 6th, aops student, yada yada yada. IMO it’s all training. I wonder if that’s a more eastern way of looking at high achievement though.
Anonymous
Post 01/07/2020 09:47     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote: Put another way, a perfect score looks great, but it doesn't necessarily mean a kid is brilliant... it certainly could be, but it can also mean the kid put a ton of practice and can think fast on those problems, but may not translate well (or even at all) to higher level competitions such as AIME, or USAMO.


I think getting a perfect score on AMC8 means the kid is pretty special in math no matter how much he or she practices for the test. I would call those kids brilliant in math, but we may have different definitions of "brilliant." Certainly, there are many kids who are brilliant in math but don't get perfect scores on AMC8. There are also many bright kids who practice a lot for AMC8, but fail to earn any awards. For the most part, the kids who earn high scores on AMC8 also earn them on AMC10/12.

I agree, though, that AIME and USAMO are much better exams for detecting extreme math talent.
Anonymous
Post 01/07/2020 09:07     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:It's not that trainable, though. Nationally, there were 143 perfect scores. In VA, there were 5. There are a lot more than 143 kids in the country who are brilliant at math, practiced a lot, and wanted perfect scores. Every kid with a perfect score is exceptional at math AND spent a lot of time practicing.

The 4th and 5th graders who do well are already taking algebra or geometry.

It's somewhat like the SAT - highly preppable, but very few kids can be prepped to a perfect score.


Your post is not fully accurate, it is not really somewhat like the SAT. Almost all the SAT questions are more basic than many of the AMC questions. In particular, even the last few SAT questions do not require more than 1-2 steps to solve and are trivial for many kids. This is supported by the huge number of kids who get perfect scores on the math SAT, its in the multiple thousands. On the other hand the number of perfect scores on the AMC 8 is at least an order of magnitude less. And the number of kids with perfect scores on the AMC 10 and 12 is another order of magnitude less than the AMC 8 (even though at least 100k kids take the AMC 10 and 12). Sure all the tests are preppable (and what isn't to some degree?), but the AMC's are a lot less amenable to prep for getting really high scores, the ceiling is much higher than on the SAT...

You are right, there are a lot more brilliant kids than the perfect score numbers on the AMC show, but that just means that they either didn't take or care to take the AMCs (many schools don't offer it), or they still did pretty well on the AMC but did not prep and therefore aren't likely to get perfect and beat the time constraint without practice (25 questions in 40 minutes, which is really fast for the types of questions asked on the test). Put another way, a perfect score looks great, but it doesn't necessarily mean a kid is brilliant... it certainly could be, but it can also mean the kid put a ton of practice and can think fast on those problems, but may not translate well (or even at all) to higher level competitions such as AIME, or USAMO.
Anonymous
Post 01/07/2020 07:15     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
It's not that trainable, though. Nationally, there were 143 perfect scores. In VA, there were 5. There are a lot more than 143 kids in the country who are brilliant at math, practiced a lot, and wanted perfect scores. Every kid with a perfect score is exceptional at math AND spent a lot of time practicing.

The 4th and 5th graders who do well are already taking algebra or geometry.

It's somewhat like the SAT - highly preppable, but very few kids can be prepped to a perfect score.
Anonymous
Post 01/06/2020 22:18     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:There are 4th and 5th graders scoring in the 20s. How?


Easy, practice. Those kids love doing math puzzles and challenging themselves beyond regular school math. Also... (and this is not really a secret in the math contest world)... but the AMC 8 is an easy test compared to many other math competitions (such as State mathcounts, and many of the high school competitions). The sheer number of perfect scores awarded on each year on the AMC 8 proves that (compared to say, almost none on the AMC 10 or AMC 12).
Anonymous
Post 01/06/2020 21:42     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
There are 4th and 5th graders scoring in the 20s. How?
Anonymous
Post 01/06/2020 20:40     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:Our 4th Grader scored 4. Is that any good for a 4th grader.
Anonymous
Post 12/26/2019 09:13     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Anyone when the AMC8 2019 will be available?

The Honor Roll lists are usually published around Christmas.


They're up now. Longfellow had another dominant year and placed a ton of kids on the honor roll. Carson, too. Navy, Mosby Woods, and Kent Gardens all had great showings for elementary schools.
Anonymous
Post 12/06/2019 13:59     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:Anyone when the AMC8 2019 will be available?

The Honor Roll lists are usually published around Christmas.
Anonymous
Post 12/06/2019 13:33     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anyone when the AMC8 2019 will be available?
Anonymous
Post 11/30/2019 21:45     Subject: Re:How to check AMC 8 results online?
If you didn't look at the test booklet, but instead randomly marked answers on the answer sheet, 5 would be the expected score. 25 questions, 5 answer choices each.
Anonymous
Post 11/30/2019 17:57     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Our 4th Grader scored 4. Is that any good for a 4th grader.

Anonymous
Post 11/30/2019 17:57     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:Our 4th Grader scored 4. Is that any good for a 4th grader.
no
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2019 13:10     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anonymous wrote:Anyone get the vibe that the owner of "Alpha Stem Math Club" is posting on here trying to drum up business?

Profoundly gifted is 180+ IQ--half the club? Really.


I bet they're using the DYS definition of profoundly gifted = 145 IQ. It makes me cringe when people carelessly throw around terms like "profoundly gifted." It really should only refer to kids who are so far above their age peers that they're already in college as pre-teens.

According to their webpage, Alpha STEM offers NNAT and CogAT prep. One would think that all of these "profoundly gifted" kids could manage to get accepted into AAP without prepping for the tests.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2019 10:19     Subject: How to check AMC 8 results online?
Anyone get the vibe that the owner of "Alpha Stem Math Club" is posting on here trying to drum up business?

Profoundly gifted is 180+ IQ--half the club? Really.