How to make AIME from a USAMO Qualifier!

Summary

Highlights

• Rick Mizunder shares his journey from math competitions to becoming a USAMO qualifier 🏆
• Understanding the structure of AIME and its importance in math competitions 🌟
• Tips on how to effectively prepare and qualify for AIME through AMC 10 and 12 💪
• Insightful strategies for studying and test-taking to enhance performance 📈
• Creative study resources and practical test-day tips to maximize results ✏️

Key Takeaways

• AIME is a crucial step in the IMO selection process 🧮
• Qualifying involves doing well in AMC 10 or 12, or through USAMTS 📚
• Passion and consistent practice are essential for success in math competitions 💡
• Using resources like the Art of Problem Solving books can significantly boost your skills 📘
• Confidence and calmness on test day increase performance 🍫

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Background In the Introduction and Background section, the narrator, Rick Mizunder, is introduced. Rick, who has been creating math videos, greets the audience and reminds them to like and subscribe to the channel, emphasizing the importance of viewer engagement.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Channel Update and Explanation The chapter titled 'Channel Update and Explanation' discusses the slow upload rate on the Mathex channel over the past year. The narrator explains that their junior year in high school, known for its challenges in the American school system, has contributed to this slower pace. They acknowledge their efforts are primarily focused on handling the demanding academic workload, which has impacted their content creation schedule.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Personal Experience with Math Competitions The speaker reflects on their engagement with math competitions and how other responsibilities, like maintaining their GPA and participating in extracurricular activities, have led them to devote less time to math-related activities than they did previously. With the school year coming to a close, the speaker aims to produce more videos soon. In this departure from their usual format of discussing interesting math problems, the speaker intends to talk about their personal experience with a math competition.
• 03:00 - 05:30: Overview of AIME and IMO Selection Process The chapter introduces the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), explaining its significance. Additionally, it offers tips on qualifying for this exam, based on the author's personal experiences. The chapter aims to guide readers on understanding AIME and developing strategies to prepare effectively.
• 05:30 - 08:00: Qualifying for AIME: AMC 10 and AMC 12 The chapter begins with the author discussing their extensive experience with mathematics competitions, which they have been involved in since the fourth grade. They mention participating in various contests like Math Kangaroo and others, establishing their qualification to speak on the subject of the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME).
• 08:00 - 09:30: Qualifying for AIME: USAMTS In this chapter, the speaker recounts their mathematical competition journey from elementary through high school. They participated in various math competitions during these years. The speaker notes significant growth in 9th grade when they qualified for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) for the first time. Their accomplishments continued as they qualified for the United States Junior Math Olympiad (USJMO) in 10th grade and, subsequently, for the United States Math Olympiad (USAMO) in the following year.
• 09:30 - 12:00: AIME Format vs AMC and Olympiads The chapter discusses various math competitions, including the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament (HMMT) and Purple Comet, which the speaker considers secondary to their main goal after qualifying for AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination) in ninth grade. The speaker aims to qualify for the USA Math Olympiad and mentions that their experience in these competitions, particularly AIME, gives them relevant experience to discuss the topic further.
• 12:00 - 24:00: Strategies for Preparing for AIME The chapter 'Strategies for Preparing for AIME' discusses the important role of the AIME exam in the selection process for the International Math Olympiad (IMO) team. It highlights that this test is the second in a series of exams designed to select the most proficient participants for the IMO team. The process begins with entry-level math competitions, such as the AMC 10 or AMC 12, which anyone interested can register for and participate in.
• 24:00 - 30:00: Studying Phase for AIME Preparation The chapter discusses the process of qualifying for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), which follows the American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) 10 and 12. It explains that the top 2.5% of scorers from AMC 10 and the top 5% from AMC 12 are invited to participate in the AIME. The chapter is focused on the preparation phase for the AIME and emphasizes the importance of performing well in these preceding competitions as their cumulative scores will be considered.
• 30:00 - 39:00: Testing Phase for AIME Preparation This chapter discusses the testing phase for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) preparation. It explains the process by which students progress through various competitions, starting with the AMC 10 and AMC 12 exams. Students in 10th grade or below who perform well on the AMC 10 can qualify for the United States Junior Math Olympiad (USAJMO), while those above 10th grade taking the AMC 12 can progress to the United States Math Olympiad (USAMO). Successful participants in these olympiads may then qualify for the Math Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP), also known as MOP.
• 39:00 - 43:00: Final Tips Before AIME Exam The chapter discusses the selection process for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) team, highlighting the competitive nature of the tests involved. It specifically mentions the team selection tests (TST) as part of this process. Achieving intermediate stages of this selection is considered impressive due to the large number of participants. The chapter emphasizes the importance of performing well in the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), which requires participants to be in the top 2.5% in AMC 10 or top 5% in AMC 12.
• 43:00 - 45:00: Conclusion and Encouragement The chapter titled 'Conclusion and Encouragement' discusses the competitive nature of elite college acceptance rates, illustrating a similar level of competitiveness in national math competitions in the USA. Being among the top 200 to 250 math competitors is considered a significant achievement. Furthermore, the chapter emphasizes that participating in competitions like AI ME requires a genuine interest in mathematics.
• 45:00 - 46:00: Outro The 'Outro' chapter discusses the importance of having a genuine passion for mathematics beyond just college admissions. It highlights the need for dedication and passion to excel in advanced levels of math, such as the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination) and IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) team selections. The chapter emphasizes that while many students participate, standing out requires proving oneself to be exceptional compared to peers.

How to make AIME from a USAMO Qualifier! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] so [Music] make sure to like and subscribe right now yes do it hello everyone my name is rick mizunder and i've been making math videos on this
• 00:30 - 01:00 channel mathex for a bit over two years at this point if you may have noticed our uploads may have been a little slow for these past couple of weeks and honestly over this last year in general i don't want to make excuses but this is kind of because this year i'm a junior in high school and for those of you who are aware of the american school systems and college processes you might know that junior years are quite tough which is why i spent a lot of effort um
• 01:00 - 01:30 maintaining my overall gpa and other extracurriculars i haven't been putting as much time into math effects as i have been doing previously um now that my school year is ramping down i plan to make more videos but due to your patience as viewers i decided to try to create a different type of video today um instead of just using doing my usual format of finding an interesting math problem and just discussing that i want to talk about a competition in
• 01:30 - 02:00 general specifically aimee the american invitational mathematics exam examination i want to talk about this competition talk about why it's important and then maybe give some tips on how you can qualify for this exam based on my own past experience so hang tight and i'm about to explain aiame what it is and how to study to make it
• 02:00 - 02:30 before i talk about ai me and talk about my general strategy just i just want to share some context about my experience with math competition and math competition problems i've been doing this channel for about two years now as i mentioned before and i think i have somewhat of an extensive experience with math competitions i've been participating in competition math since fourth grade i did morm's math kangaroo no medic so all
• 02:30 - 03:00 these younger elementary school competitions and i also did a lot of middle school competitions like math challenge and amca however i think my real growth really happened in the early half of high school around 9th grade when i qualified for aimee for the first time in the following year 10th grade i qualified for usc gmo united states junior math olympiad and following year this year i qualified for the us bath olympiad
• 03:00 - 03:30 i also did a bunch of other competitions like hmmt harvard mit math tournament and purple comet but i would really consider these as just like side side goals as my main goal after making aimee in ninth grade was to try to qualify for the usa math olympiad i'll talk more about the usa math olympia later in the video but the my participation in this competition as well as this predecessor stage of aimee i think gives me relevant experience to talk about the subject
• 03:30 - 04:00 so now for the juicy stuff so aimee is the second of a series of tests used for the imo team selection process this is the process used to as you would guess select members for the international math olympiad team the process starts with several entry-level math contests these are constants you can just sign up and participate in like amc 10 or emc 12
• 04:00 - 04:30 american math competition 10 or 12. the top scorers on these competitions i think it's about top 2.5 percent for amc 10 or top 5 percent for abc 12 get invited for ai me which is the subject of this video american invitational math examination um after you do well on aimee they take your cumulative score from aimee
• 04:30 - 05:00 and amc 10 and they use that to determine whether you make the next stage which is the olympian stage if you're under 10th grade and took amc 10 you're going to make usajmo united states junior math olympiad if you're older than 10th grade and you took amc 12 you're going to make usamo united states math olympiad if you do well on either of those olympiads you're going to qualify for mop or mosp math olympiad summer program
• 05:00 - 05:30 and then from there they use a series of tests called tst team selections tests to determine determine the imo team now this process is really competitive like thousands of people do it every year so even just getting it getting to like a couple of the intermediate steps itself is already pretty impressive as i said right aime is top 2.5 of participants for amc 10 or top 5 percent of participants for amc 12.
• 05:30 - 06:00 which is actually pretty similar to a lot of like elite college acceptance rates as well and and usajm would that be that basically means that you're in the top two 250 to 200 um math competitors in the country which is no joking number um but anyways if you want to do ai me or any of the following competitions you have to have some level of interest in math
• 06:00 - 06:30 if you only do it for college admissions it is possible however i found that it would just be really hard to study you have to be a little bit passionate about the subject to take maths to this level remember thousands of kids do it every year and most of these kids are doing it from a math class so you have to prove that you're above like a cut above the rest if you want to qualify for the following stages so now that i've talked about where aimee falls in the imo team selection
• 06:30 - 07:00 process i'm going to talk about how you can make aimee so there are three ways to make aimee but really two of them are done by like 90 of the participants these two ways are amc 10 and amc 12 as i mentioned earlier amc 10 and amc 12 are both 25 questions uh tests that need to be done in 75 minutes for each question you'll get awarded six
• 07:00 - 07:30 points if you get the question right 1.5 points if you leave the question unanswered and zero points if you get the question wrong so that means that a max score is 150 points and if you just leave the test blank you're going to get 37.5 points by default one thing to note is unlike a lot of other math competitions they actually have like a negative scoring feature so that means if you try to guess you're going to get like penalized for
• 07:30 - 08:00 it and you're actually going to lose points that you could have got by leaving the questions blank um amc 10 and amc 12 are both really similar as i mentioned they both have the format i mentioned before but amc 10 is designed for students 10th grade or below while amc 12 is designed for students 12th grade or below and this changes up the difficulty involved for amc 10 you can qualify for amy with about um i would say a 96 to 102 range which puts
• 08:00 - 08:30 you i would say in the top two 2.5 percent of competitors however for amc 12 you can get away with a bit worse 84 to 96 and top five percent of competitors however don't go thinking that amc 12 is easier than amc 10 because it really is not um at the higher levels you have to pull out you have to be able to do well on both competitions so even though you can get by with aimee with like a lower score
• 08:30 - 09:00 on amc 12 and amc 12 is significantly harder so i wouldn't recommend taking amc 12 if you're not already comfortable with amc 10 if you're in the appropriate age range if you're in 11th or 12th grade you have to do amc 12 but if you're under 10th grade do amc 10 unless you're already qualified that you can not only make aimee but you can make the following stage you actually jmo with no issue so that's pretty much qualifying for aimee through amc 10 or amc 12 but there's
• 09:00 - 09:30 also one other path that i haven't discussed you can technically qualify for aimee through usamts united states mathematics talent search now why don't many people do this because the united states mathematics talent search is pretty difficult for those of you who are unaware this competition gives you a month to solve five problems and prove them and although you might be thinking huh that's kind of easy right a month to deal with five problems like the time ratio is way better than like what the
• 09:30 - 10:00 three minutes per problem on emc 10 or 12. well guess what they make the problems accordingly and proofs for the most part are pretty difficult as many math students don't really get proper exposure to proofs through their general schooling like sure i think i think like high school geometry has something but the level of proofs that you're gonna get is taught in school is very like really lower so proofs is like a whole new concept you're gonna have to get by yourself and you're gonna have to be pretty
• 10:00 - 10:30 proficient at it like you have to be like you have to be pretty good at proof so it's like the aimee cutoff score so usm case is out of 75. so if you want to make aimee through usmts you have to get like i think 67 or 68 which is pretty good and honestly if you can score that well on a usmts proof level examination you're going to qualify for aimee yourself no problem and you should be looking to qualify for olympiads if you haven't and that you can actually have a good chance of doing well on those olympians
• 10:30 - 11:00 due to the the question nature changing i'm going to talk a little bit about ai me and following competition but this is just a a brief learn remember how i mentioned how amc 10 and amc 12 are like multiple choice questions if i did not oops but they are they're just multiple choice okay you read each question they have five answer choices you can straight up guess the right answer but as i mentioned there are negative points you don't want to do that but aimee is not like that at all
• 11:00 - 11:30 aimee gives you a problem and you just know that the question like the answer has to be between um 0 to 999 so technically you could say it's multiple choice out of a thousand but let's be honest it's more like a like a solve and you type it you'd solve and you're writing the answer kind of a problem so that's a completely different format from amc 10. but if you think that about it it gets even weirder when it comes to olympia's right because amc 10 amy you you prep computational type mathematics right
• 11:30 - 12:00 olympiads you just do proofs so yeah the steep learning curve like out of nowhere you just do proofs so this means right you could be like the best of computational mathematics and you could like straight up like pull perfect scores on both emc 10 and mc12 and amy right but if you don't know about proofs like anything about proofs you're going to be screwed for um usa more usgmo this was technically kind
• 12:00 - 12:30 of a bit of an exaggeration because some of the harder any problems are like usamo and usgmo but overall i would say that there is a bit of a jump between both competitions um and this for this reason right um 10th grade i got a pretty solid score on both amc 10 and amy i think i got 141 on amc 10 and i uh 9 or ten on amy but then on usa jmo i should have got a zero because
• 12:30 - 13:00 i was just struggling with their proof problems they don't give you like easy little proofs right like it would make sense for the first competition in proves to be easy but no they go straight to pretty difficult level proofs so uh slight tangent it's a little different there but anyways back on today yeah me um so i hope you kind of understand what tests you need to do to make aimee what you how well you need to score but that's just what you need to do so
• 13:00 - 13:30 i'll i'll give you some suggested strategies that can help you um actually like try to prepare and qualify for the test and maybe the following year or the year after that um it doesn't really like when it comes to competition math starting earlier is always better um so just knowing about this information in advance i would say would help you even if you don't actively work towards it now i kind of wish i had this information earlier on because
• 13:30 - 14:00 i had a lot of self-exploration and like just searching online on the web so i just hope this will be helpful to any aspiring amy qualifiers or math olympiad qualifiers so when prepping for any like difficult competition or examination i would consider the there to be two phases in like the process the first phase i would consider to be called as the studying phase um and this is the phase where you just
• 14:00 - 14:30 kind of like go out you learn a bunch of new content um you just keep on practicing and getting better with this learned content and it's just like you're just learning this period of time like um just trying to think how i could relate it's like a when you when you sign up for ap test is like doing the ap class work right you just go you're sure you're going to have a bunch of intermediate tests in between but you're really just building on to your knowledge and like some sort of like linear or like whatever like manner you want you're
• 14:30 - 15:00 just growing your knowledge the other phase is the testing phase um test taking abilities are a very important skill that not everyone has from the start like even if you're the best in math if you can't take the test it really like hurts you later on so test taking is a skill that i think it's really important to develop um aside from just learning the content so what does this mean it means do you know how to manage your time appropriately during the test can you
• 15:00 - 15:30 stay calm during the test do you know how to like do you know when to skip a problem and want to like keep on toiling with it so when the test when you get close to your test date um you have to start thinking and getting good at all these test preparation strategies by just taking a bunch of practice tests so this is like a brief overview but i'm going to go into each of these phasing phases the studying phase and the test prep phase um deeper like right now
• 15:30 - 16:00 [Music] so the studying phase i would consider being um at least three months away from the exam so three months to however long you have till the exam since amy is a yearly test i would say that this range is probably from three to twelve months um so now that stummers now that summer's starting if you want to make amy next year i would consider just starting study starting to study the content right now so what does this mean
• 16:00 - 16:30 i mean if possible get a a math book a good math book i would recommend the art of problem solving introductory series if you're really new to competition math if you're quite adept at it i would recommend just going through and seeing if you can do all the challenge problems and just doing all those problems but the art of problem introductory series is straight up i would say the most important book when starting introductory competition mathematics
• 16:30 - 17:00 it helped me a lot and it helped clear a lot of my basics and just show me like a more structured style to problem solving so i would recommend going through like the entire series if possible um intro to algebra intro accounting and probability intro to number theory intro to geometry um do these four books and you could actually like if you do these books thoroughly can do every problem like inside out you could honestly qualify for amy just like that um
• 17:00 - 17:30 so those books are really helpful let's see i think after you do those books which that would take a bit of time as when i did the series it i've spent about like a month and a half like just doing problems from the book and reading content so that would take a bit of time like six months but if you're starting early you have more leeway but i would recommend going through the entire series like pretty well
• 17:30 - 18:00 another thing if you finish that if you finish the intro to like the intro series for art of problem solving i would suggest then going on to volume one it's kind of like a review of the intro series i i like to think of it like that um so if you already feel confident with all the introductory stuff in the art of prom series like art of problem solving series you could straight up just go do volume 2 and just there's not much content in it which is
• 18:00 - 18:30 why i wouldn't suggest it as a book for learning but there are a lot of problems in there so actually you know i talked about if you feel confident with art of problem solving you could just go through the the intro series challenge problems but if you feel confident you can also just go to volume one and just do all their problems i would honestly say the volume one problems are slightly harder but both of them will kind of set you up to be like pretty proficient at introductory problem solving and this is going to be really helpful when you're doing like the questions in like that i think
• 18:30 - 19:00 one two probably like 15 16 on amc 10 and if you can get those problems all right and maybe get a little lucky with the guesswork and you know all the that other stuff you could usually qualify for yeah i mean just like that so you got to do those books or you don't have to do those books we have to know the content covered in those books like by the time aimee rolls around of course this is just like bare minimum prep if you have more time try keep on like
• 19:00 - 19:30 just learning more and more because even if like because ai because amc 10s are getting harder nowadays i'm noticing that a lot more advanced strategies that used to be like saved for aimee itself are showing up on amc 10 exams so if you can just keep on learning more and more theory and like practicing with more and more theory it'll it'll help you in the long run so yeah i mentioned the art of problem solving series but i know those books are pretty expensive
• 19:30 - 20:00 so if you can't afford those books or just don't want to pay for them i would recommend going on aiops and finding like there are like these little like amc 10 or amc 12 like syllabuses or cheat sheets so go through like each of these syllabuses or cheat sheets i think um i i'll link some i'll link several in the description for this video but if you go through these videos right they show you like a list of concepts you have to know cold for the amc 10 and amc 12 in order to
• 20:00 - 20:30 like just completely like destroy the exam so i would recommend like going through each of these concepts and like getting whatever math resources you have available it could be like a high school like algebra book or just whatever um and just making sure you know all these concepts by doing a bunch of practice problems from each of these concepts okay so after the studying phase you should be around like two to three months away from the
• 20:30 - 21:00 actual amc exam so probably because of the new schedule that probably be in like two to three months the new schedule is weird right um because amc's are now in november so probably september october the start of new school year in this phase um when you're like two to three months away from the actual exam it's okay to try to learn new theory but i would prioritize an emphasis on taking practice tests and just getting
• 21:00 - 21:30 good at the testing process for amc 10 and or 12. amc 10 and or 12 are both blitz kind of tests right you have 25 questions doing 75 minutes um so you should get used to that time ratio of course i'm saying like 75 questions in 25 minutes but in reality you're probably going to do like the first um 10 15 problems much quicker than you're going to do the later problems so you just have to get used to this dynamic everyone has their own strategy
• 21:30 - 22:00 so they want to go out there and just say that you have to use this strategy to do the test problems but this is kind of why we do a lot of practice tests to develop our own strategy and figure out what works best for us so those uh two to one months before they to like these two months before the exam you want to do as many practice tests as you can um you can take a lot of there are like dozens of years of practice tests off of aops which you can do um and if you run out of those there are also a bunch of
• 22:00 - 22:30 mock tests and even if you run out of those you can just search up similar exams like um this year i was taking amc 12 but since i've taken a bunch of mc12 tests in the past and ran out i decided to use some mammal tests so as long as the test format is somewhat similar and the difficulty is not too far apart you can honestly just take other competitions and use them as practice tests as well but the key thing to do is not just keep on doing these practice tests um
• 22:30 - 23:00 in order to actually improve and like improve your testing process and improve the concepts you learn you have to review what you get wrong on each practice test really thoroughly um so for example let's say you take an amc 12 test and you only answer the first 17. out of the first 17 you get three wrong and you don't even attempt the final um eight you should review not only like those three you got wrong but any problems that you like you guessed and got right in the first 17 as
• 23:00 - 23:30 well as look at like the following your problems after that and when you review this i would suggest not going to the solution automatically um because just thinking through and like trying to look at the problem from a fresh pair of eyes and not like thinking and like thinking through it will help you like increase your problem solving capacity so for any problems you left unattended um i would recommend just reading through it like read through the problem again see if you can figure it out and only when you're stuck on problems that
• 23:30 - 24:00 you either get wrong or didn't attempt that's the only time when you should go and like read the solution and even if you read the solution only read like one or two lines by yourself and then try to go back to it on your own this is just try to help you like build your problem solving abilities um because this is the most important thing to get good at the amc 12 and amc 10 type of testing so you should do a bunch of practice tests in the two to one month before the exam
• 24:00 - 24:30 and like just actually i say like that but no you should just do practice tests for like two months away from the exam till the exam date um and if you review it that will help you a lot you could also as i said you could also mix in some new theory there but like i would i'll put a heavier emphasis on the test like the testing process because all the other bits of theories hopefully are just covered just by doing practice problems and um it's hard to like really learn and get
• 24:30 - 25:00 good at a bunch of concepts in a really short period of time so that's why i really emphasize the testing process like during this period okay so after all the studying and all this test prep you should be like just right away from the amc 10 or amc 12 test date um on this test date i would recommend not doing anything too crazy like don't tie yourself out like too heavily before the test or stress
• 25:00 - 25:30 yourself out anyways um you've done the prep for the year you've done your test prep you've done your studying so what i'll recommend is just keep cool before the test make sure you have the right amount of pencils you have a water bottle um i like to take a little chocolate before an exam to get like my energy help and just get excited for it like if you if you go into the test dreading it you're gonna do bad going like excited about it like even if it is stressful just having a positive attitude about it
• 25:30 - 26:00 like being hyped for the test i i found has always like increased my performance if i'm excited on the test and feel like i got this i typically do better on the test everyone has their own strategies for test taking like tests to like when they're taking the test so on exam day but i would recommend like these strategies um just get there on time get a lot of pencils and erasers uh get a water bottle and maybe eat a little chocolate and then you're all set the to do mc10 and amc 12.
• 26:00 - 26:30 and hopefully you do well enough to make eevee even if you don't there's no stress amy is just one step of just becoming a better problem solver overall as i mentioned throughout this video like i failed making amy a couple of times uh i tried in eighth grade really tried an 8th grade i was i was like just under the cut off by i think like um i think like six six points so if i actually left some questions blank i would have made it but ultimately it all pays off because
• 26:30 - 27:00 even though i was close that year i was able to get even further and that was actually why i was able to escalate all the like escalate to an olympian pretty quickly so all the work you do always builds onto each other like not none of the work gets wasted so just keep that in mind before the test date um overall i hope this video was helpful to you let me know if you like this type of video or don't like this type of video and if you want you can suggest other competitions
• 27:00 - 27:30 or suggest other types of videos for me to make in the future thank you for your time [Music]
• 27:30 - 28:00 you