Resources

Practice Tips

There are three areas that you should aim to improve when you practice competition mathematics. They are listed below along with some helpful pointers.

Knowledge — Read the entire problem. Think about possible approaches to solving it. Then try to solve the problem and check your answer. Do another similar problem and try to reinforce the concept. If you get stuck, use the internet, a teacher, or a friend to help you work through the problem. Memorize any necessary formulas or steps. Find a problem-solving method that makes sense to you.

Accuracy — Once you understand the related math concept, find a series of problems that are similar to the one you learned (or make them up if possible). Then, do a short number of problems and check your answers. Go over those problems and see what you did wrong. Finally, finish the rest of the problems and focus on being as accurate as possible. Avoid rushing at this point.

Speed — Now that you are confident that you can solve the problem, find or have a friend construct a practice test. Set a fast-paced, but reasonable time limit, create an answer grid, and go! On scratch paper, write as much as you need to as you work, but try not to write so much that it slows you down. Once the time is up, review each problem and how you solved it, and search for faster methods. Take the test again, and see if you can complete the same problems at a faster rate. Over time, you will start to recognize similar problems on related tests and you will begin to develop faster solution methods.

Problem Sets

Below you will find links to past papers for various competitions.

Knights of Pi Math Tournament

American Mathematics Competition Series (AMC, AIME, USAMO)

Math is Cool

Washington State Mathematics Council Mathematics Contest

Resources

Practice Tips

Problem Sets

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