from:
[email protected]to: "
[email protected]" <
[email protected]>
date: Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 8:42 PM
subject: Mathcounts Preparation
Hello,
I have several of your Mathcounts books, and just now, bought the State Preparation package from your website and am awaiting the link to access the material. Your books are very good!
I have a question for you. My 7th grader just got First Place in Chapter and wants very badly to try and get to Nationals from State. What would your advice be for preparation? Should she prepare using Nationals material or using State material? I noticed on your website that you mentioned that to prepare for Chapter one should use State material.
Any other tips and advice? She mostly loses points due to careless errors, and does not have time to check over her work. Any other advice/input/tips would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Rima
Sent from my iPad
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from: ourmathcounts <
[email protected]>
to: Rima Lal <
[email protected]>
date: Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 9:42 PM
subject: Re: Mathcounts Preparation
Congratulations to your child!
One way to overcome careless mistakes is to do a lot of practice.
Your child needs to work on national problems in order to do good at state. One week before the test she needs to do a set (state sprint and target) of test every day. But do no math the day before the test.
If you need the past national problems, please let me know and I am happy to share with you.
Below are two messages that may be useful for your child. First message was from a boy who was in top 12 nationally and the second one was from a National Champion.
Good luck!
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Message subject: Re: advice needed for state mathcounts
From:
Sent: 7:46 pm
To:
Sure, no problem.
Sprint:
Sprint was always my favorite round. At nationals, I missed two Targets but still managed to get into the Countdown because of my sprint score (it's also the first tie-breaker). So Sprint is important.
In the actual competition, I didn't follow any of the weird "start at the end" or "skip questions you can't get right away" strategies. I just blazed right through them. I guess part of this was based on my ability; I could do all of the problems (except maybe 1 or 2), it was just about how much time I spent on them. I found it most useful to finish all of the problems I started, unless I really was stuck, which didn't happen much. Anyway, my advice (assuming you get 20+ in practices) is to just go in order. The last ones are the hard ones, and they usually take longer, but all of the problems are worth the same amount, so it's best to make sure you do the easy ones.
At State, the biggest thing I can say about Sprint is to use the problem number to your advantage. If it's a #7, and the best you can come up with is like 20 separate cases, there's probably an easier way. This is also true only slightly of Team, and not at all of Target. On Sprint, the first few should get you warmed up, and I would expect to get half way in around 1/3 the total time.
To prepare, I would just find a hundred or so Sprint problems and work through them all in one or two sittings. Just doing problem after problem after problem helps you for Sprint.
Target:
Target has always been my worst round, except at Regionals. The key with Target is to get an answer quickly, and then check it in every way you know. I always solved both problems (or at least got an answer) and then went back and checked them. Occasionally, I checked the first before moving on, but you're right the first time a lot.
Make sure to read the problems at least twice and remember all of the little tricks they like to throw in, like converting square inches to square feet (x144), and anything else they might come up with.
To be honest, I don't know how to prepare for Target without just doing old tests.
That's all I can think of right now. Confidence is a great booster too, almost as much as sugar and caffeine.
No, I'm serious - lots of sugar helps you think faster. But that's coming from someone who never gets stressed, so it might be different for you. But I always had a pop or two and any donuts they had before the contests.
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Message subject: Re: mathcounts help
From:
Sent: 7:08 pm
To:
Hello ,
I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. For some reason, I didn't receive an e-mail notification about your private message, and so I've neglected to check my PM inbox until now. Thank you for your kind words of support.
As for MathCounts advice, where do I begin. First, and perhaps most importantly, you must remember that MathCounts is just a competition, and there are more important things in the world. Also, while it's definitely nice to win or place highly at Nationals, the AMCs are *more* (loosely used term here) important.
Memorization is important, but how you apply your memorization is more important. For example, perhaps you know the binomial theorem. But do you know why it works exactly the way it does? Same logic goes for most every theorem or formula you memorize.
Avoiding careless mistakes is a very personal issue and difficult to deal with. Everybody has different things that cause them to make mistakes, and I suppose somehow identifying the situations in which you are prone to making mistakes is the best first step toward reducing the number of these mistakes you make. It's very difficult not to make careless errors; I personally never managed to get 8/8 on the Target Round at either State or Nationals in either of my years.
Finally, preparation in general consists of doing lots of problems. I remember doing every State and Nationals round in MathCounts history, as well as every Warmup, and Workout. However, simply doing 10,000 problems is not a guaranteed formula for success. Even if you get 29/30 on a sprint round, it's extremely important that you focus on the problem you missed, and understand exactly why you weren't able to solve it (didn't know a formula, didn't see a different approach, made a careless error, etc.). In fact, even if you get 30/30 or 46/46, unless you know you solved every problem in the fastest and most efficient possible way, you still have room to improve.
Good luck in your future endeavors,
Albert