Students from local secondary schools competed problem solving skill in William and Mary
by Junping Shi
|
March 31, 2015
23 students from area middle schools and high schools participated in the 66th annual American Mathematics Contest 12, and/or the 16th annual American Mathematics Contest 10 at the College of William and Mary. The contests were held on Tuesday, February 3, 2015 (for Contest A) and Wednesday, February 25, 2015 (for Contest B). The students competed for local, regional and national student and school awards. The contest, which covers high school mathematics, is given in participating schools as well as some higher education institutes. The 2015 contest in William and Mary is organized by Junping Shi, a Professor in the Department of Mathematics. Its purpose is to spur interest in mathematics and develop talent through the excitement of friendly competition at problem solving in a timed format. In 2014, over 220,000 students from 4,200 schools participated in the AMC 10 & AMC 12 contests. The participating students in Williamsburg area come from Berkeley Middle School, Hornsby Middle School, Lafayette High School, Jamestown High School, Tabb High School and Williamsburg Montessori School. Two students from Virginia Beach and Chapel Hill, North Carolina also participated as the contest was not offered in their area on February 25 (a snow day).
The top scorers for AMC12B at the William and Mary contest site were Stanislav Kuzmenko (9th grade, Lafayette High School), Mayee Chen (12th grade, Jamestown High School), and Jenny Gu (9th grade, Tabb High School), and the top scorers for AMC10B were Edric Eun (8th grade, Chapel Hill, NC), Ralph Sun (9th grade, Ocean Lakes High School, Virginia Beach), and Finn Hulse (8th grade, Berkeley Middle School). The top scorers for AMC10A were Jenny Gu, Leo Murphy (7th grade, Berkeley Middle School) and Benjamin Keener (9th grade, Jamestown High School). Five students (Kuzmenko, Chen, Gu, Eun and Murphy) qualified for American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), the next level of competiton. The William and Mary AMC12 team (Kuzmenko, Chen and Gu) was ranked the second in the state of Virginia with a score of 367.50, only behind Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Alexanderia which has a score of 400.50. Langley High School in McLean was third with 339.
According to Prof. Steven Dunbar, who serves as Director of the American Mathematics Competitions, the AMC 12 (first offered in 1950), and the AMC 10 (first offered in 2000), are part of a series of contests sponsored each year by The Mathematical Association of America, through their program, the American Mathematics Competitions. The AMC offers the only math competition series in the country leading to the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO), the United States of American Junior Mathematical Olympiad (USAJMO) and the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP). From this group of students, the AMC sends the highly competitive USA Team to the prestigious annual International Mathematical Olympiad. The AMC program includes:
American Mathematics Contest 8 (AMC8), Grades 6–8, November
American Mathematics Contest 10 (AMC 10), Grades 10 & below, 2 dates in February
American Mathematics Contest 12 (AMC 12), Grades 12 & below, 2 dates in February
American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), All who qualify, 2 dates in March-April
USA Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO), All who qualify, late-April
USA Junior Mathematical Olympiad (USAJMO) All who qualify, late-April
Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP) ,Qualify thru USAMO, June
International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), Top six from USAMO, MOSP, July
The AMC is located at the Mathematical Association of America and receives support from the Akamai Foundation, Academy of Applied Sciences, American Institute of Mathematics, American Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges, American Mathematical Society, American Statistical Association, Art of Problem Solving, Association for Symbolic Logic, Awesome Math, Casualty Actuarial Society, the D.E. Shaw Group, Idea Math, Jane Street Capital, Math for America, Math Training Center, Mu Alpha Theta, Andy and Laurie Okun, Pi Mu Epsilon, the Society for Industrial and Applied Math, and W.H. Freeman. The Contests are given across the U.S.A., Canada, and in many schools abroad.
Details concerning the 2015 AMC 10/12 contests for High School, as well as the rest of AMC’s programs are available on the AMC web site: maa.org/amc
For further information contact the AMC by email at amcinfo@maa.org or by telephone at 800-527-3690.
