On Thursday February 7, the school hosted its annual American Mathematics Competition (AMC).
AMC is held once a year, in the beginning of the spring semester. Students in all grades can enter, but only 40 students are guaranteed a spot in the competition. The competition is for individuals, not teams, where every participant is required to take a test over the span of 75 minutes. Freshmen and sophomores take the AMC-10 while juniors and seniors take the AMC-12.
Both tests contain 25 rigorous multiple-choice questions. The AMC-10 goes up to Geometry and the AMC-12 contains a small portion of trigonometry, but excludes calculus.
“The questions are really hard. Most people only answer numbers one through fifteen. All the questions after that are almost impossible to answer,” senior Claudia Mejia said. Mejia is captain of the Math Team.
To qualify for future competitions, a student must score a minimum of 90 points on the test. Each question is worth six points. Students receive zero points on questions answered wrong or partially incorrect.
Students who surpass 90 points automatically qualify for the national competition. If a competitor makes it past that, he or she qualifies to compete in the International Math Circle.
The results of the competition are announced in the weeks after the AMC takes place. Math teacher Anais Arteaga, AMC supervisor on our campus, reveals the scores to the participants and announces any students who advance to the next competition.
“I probably will get the same score I got last year. In my sophomore year I scored average so at least I know I’m not below average,” Mejia said.
For last year’s competition the average score was 53 points. Only one student moved on to the nationals.
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