Contests & Programs AMC and other contests, summer programs, etc.
AMC and other contests, summer programs, etc.
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Contests & Programs AMC and other contests, summer programs, etc.
AMC and other contests, summer programs, etc.
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k a April Highlights and 2025 AoPS Online Class Information
jlacosta   0
Yesterday at 3:18 PM
Spring is in full swing and summer is right around the corner, what are your plans? At AoPS Online our schedule has new classes starting now through July, so be sure to keep your skills sharp and be prepared for the Fall school year! Check out the schedule of upcoming classes below.

WOOT early bird pricing is in effect, don’t miss out! If you took MathWOOT Level 2 last year, no worries, it is all new problems this year! Our Worldwide Online Olympiad Training program is for high school level competitors. AoPS designed these courses to help our top students get the deep focus they need to succeed in their specific competition goals. Check out the details at this link for all our WOOT programs in math, computer science, chemistry, and physics.

Looking for summer camps in math and language arts? Be sure to check out the video-based summer camps offered at the Virtual Campus that are 2- to 4-weeks in duration. There are middle and high school competition math camps as well as Math Beasts camps that review key topics coupled with fun explorations covering areas such as graph theory (Math Beasts Camp 6), cryptography (Math Beasts Camp 7-8), and topology (Math Beasts Camp 8-9)!

Be sure to mark your calendars for the following events:
[list][*]April 3rd (Webinar), 4pm PT/7:00pm ET, Learning with AoPS: Perspectives from a Parent, Math Camp Instructor, and University Professor
[*]April 8th (Math Jam), 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET, 2025 MATHCOUNTS State Discussion
April 9th (Webinar), 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Learn about Video-based Summer Camps at the Virtual Campus
[*]April 10th (Math Jam), 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET, 2025 MathILy and MathILy-Er Math Jam: Multibackwards Numbers
[*]April 22nd (Webinar), 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Competitive Programming at AoPS (USACO).[/list]
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0 replies
jlacosta
Yesterday at 3:18 PM
0 replies
Question about USAMO, self esteem, and college
xHypotenuse   8
N 37 minutes ago by deduck
Hello everyone. I know this question may sound ridiculous/neagtive but I really want to know how the rest of the community thinks on this issue. Please excuse this yap session and feel free to ignore this post if it doesn't make sense, I don't think I really have a sane mind these days and something has gotten into my head.

I want your advice on what I should do in this situation. It has been my dream to make usamo since ~second semester of 9th grade and I started grinding from that time on. Last year, I qualified for the aime and got a 5. This year I really wanted to qualify for the olympiad and studied really hard. I spent my entire summer working on counting and probability, the subject I suck at the most. And yet, on amc 12, I fumbled hard. I usually mocked ~120-130s on amc 10s but on amc 12 this year, I got really mediocre scores ~100. So I had no chance of making usamo.

So during winter of 2024-2025 I kinda gave up on aime studying and I was like "hey, if I can't get into usamo, maybe ill qualify for usapho." Since I was pretty good at physics at that time. So I spended my winter hard grinding for f=ma and guess what? The test had stupid and ridiculous questions and I only got an 11. What really sucks is that even with the stupid amount of cheaters in f=ma, if I changed all of my "D" guesses to "C," then I would have qualified. Since I solved 10 actually and guessed the rest. Absolutely unfair that only 1 of my guesses were correct.

And also since I didn't study for aime, I ended up being super rusty and so I only got a 7. Solved 9 tho. (I usually can consistently solve 10+ on aimes).

And now here's my senior year and ofc I want to apply to a prestigious college. But it feels stupid that I don't have any usamo or usapho titles like the people I know do. I think I will have good essays primarily due to a varied amount of life experiences but like, I don't feel like I will contribute much to the college without being some prestigious olympiad qualifier. So this led to me having a self esteem issue.

This also led me to the question: should I study one last year so that I can get into usamo in my senior year, or is there no point? Since like, colleges don't care about whatever the hell you do in your senior year, and also, it seems just 'weird' to be grinding math contests while the rest of the people from my school are playing around, etc. So this time around I've really been having an internal crisis between my self esteem (since getting into usamo will raise my self esteem a lot) and college/senior choices.

I know this may seem like a dumb question to some and you are free to completely ignore the post. That's fine. I just really want advice for what I should do in this situation and it would really help bring my life quality up

Thanks,
hypotenuse
8 replies
+1 w
xHypotenuse
2 hours ago
deduck
37 minutes ago
MOP Cutoffs Out?
Mathandski   28
N 6 hours ago by Yrock
MAA has just emailed a press release announcing the formula they will be using this year to come up with the MOP cutoff that applies to you! Here's the process:

1. Multiply your age by $1434$, let $n$ be the result.

2. Calculate $\varphi(n)$, where $\varphi$ is the Euler's totient theorem, which calculates the number of integers less than $n$ relatively prime to $n$.

3. Multiply your result by $1434$ again because why not, let the result be $m$.

4. Define the Fibonacci sequence $F_0 = 1, F_1 = 1, F_n = F_{n-1} + F_{n-2}$ for $n \ge 2$. Let $r$ be the remainder $F_m$ leaves when you divide it by $69$.

5. Let $x$ be your predicted USA(J)MO score.

6. You will be invited if your score is at least $\lfloor \frac{x + \sqrt[r]{r^2} + r \ln(r)}{r} \rfloor$.

7. Note that there may be additional age restrictions for non-high schoolers.

See here for MAA's original news message.

.

.

.


Edit (4/2/2025): This was an April Fool's post.
Here's the punchline
28 replies
Mathandski
Tuesday at 11:02 PM
Yrock
6 hours ago
mdk2013
Mar 30, 2025
mdk2013
Yesterday at 10:23 PM
Moving P(o)in(t)s
bobthegod78   69
N Yesterday at 8:42 PM by akliu
Source: USAJMO 2021/4
Carina has three pins, labeled $A, B$, and $C$, respectively, located at the origin of the coordinate plane. In a move, Carina may move a pin to an adjacent lattice point at distance $1$ away. What is the least number of moves that Carina can make in order for triangle $ABC$ to have area 2021?

(A lattice point is a point $(x, y)$ in the coordinate plane where $x$ and $y$ are both integers, not necessarily positive.)
69 replies
bobthegod78
Apr 15, 2021
akliu
Yesterday at 8:42 PM
No more topics!
MAA finally wrote sum good number theory
IAmTheHazard   95
N Mar 30, 2025 by Magnetoninja
Source: 2021 AIME I P14
For any positive integer $a,$ $\sigma(a)$ denotes the sum of the positive integer divisors of $a.$ Let $n$ be the least positive integer such that $\sigma(a^n)-1$ is divisible by $2021$ for all positive integers $a.$ Find the sum of the prime factors in the prime factorization of $n.$
95 replies
IAmTheHazard
Mar 11, 2021
Magnetoninja
Mar 30, 2025
MAA finally wrote sum good number theory
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Source: 2021 AIME I P14
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IAmTheHazard
5000 posts
#1 • 10 Y
Y by centslordm, samrocksnature, fidgetboss_4000, megarnie, son7, bobjoe123, rayfish, Danielzh, aidan0626, ehuseyinyigit
For any positive integer $a,$ $\sigma(a)$ denotes the sum of the positive integer divisors of $a.$ Let $n$ be the least positive integer such that $\sigma(a^n)-1$ is divisible by $2021$ for all positive integers $a.$ Find the sum of the prime factors in the prime factorization of $n.$
This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by IAmTheHazard, Mar 11, 2021, 4:58 PM
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P_Groudon
867 posts
#2 • 1 Y
Y by samrocksnature
$n = \text{lcm}(42, 43, 46, 47)$
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mathisawesome2169
1823 posts
#3 • 1 Y
Y by samrocksnature
relatively straightforward?
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vsamc
3787 posts
#4 • 3 Y
Y by samrocksnature, megarnie, eagles2018
it's $n = \text{lcm}(2021, \phi(2021))$. its equivalent to showing tru for primes, so $\frac{p^{n+1} - 1}{p-1} - 1 \equiv 0\pmod{2021}\iff \frac{p^{n+1} - p}{p-1}\equiv 0$. Use LTE if $43 | p-1, 47 | p-1$ to get $2021 | n$, and if otherwise and $p\neq 43, 47$ it just becomes $p^n\equiv 1\pmod{2021}$, so $\phi(2021) | n$. If $p = 43, p = 47$ we just get $\text{ord}_{47}(43)$, $\text{ord}_{43}(47)$ which divide $\phi(2021)$ so we can forget about those
This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by vsamc, Mar 11, 2021, 4:55 PM
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Imayormaynotknowcalculus
974 posts
#5 • 1 Y
Y by samrocksnature
MAA really likes having easy #14's
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IAmTheHazard
5000 posts
#6 • 5 Y
Y by samrocksnature, centslordm, Mango247, Mango247, Mango247
Hm I thought this was appropriate difficulty? My solution was quite similar to vsamc's
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i3435
1350 posts
#7 • 2 Y
Y by samrocksnature, Mango247
This was easy, however I messed up in the $p=1\mod 43,1\mod 47$ cases. I even remembered they existed and messed up.
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TheUltimate123
1740 posts
#8 • 7 Y
Y by samrocksnature, math31415926535, srisainandan6, Mango247, Mango247, Mango247, The_Eureka
We require that \[\prod_{p^e\parallel a}\frac{p^{en+1}-1}{p-1}\equiv1\pmod{2021}\]for all \(a\), so it is necessary and sufficient to ensure \[\frac{p^{en+1}-1}{p-1}\equiv 1\pmod{2021}\]for all \(p\), \(e\).

We solve the problem for primes:

Claim: A prime \(q\) always divides \(\frac{p^{en+1}-1}{p-1}-1\) if and only if \(q(q-1)\) divides \(n\).

Proof. For choices of \(p\not\equiv1\pmod q\), we need \(p^{en+1}-1\equiv p-1\pmod q\), i.e.\ \(p^{en}\equiv1\pmod q\). This holds for all \(p\), \(e\) if and only if \(q-1\mid n\) by Fermat's little theorem.

If \(q^k\parallel p-1\), we need \(\nu_q(p^{en+1}-1)=\nu_q(p-1)\). By lifting the exponent, this implies \(\nu_q(en+1)=0\). It follows that we must have \(q\mid n\), since otherwise some choice of \(e\) would force \(en+1\equiv0\pmod q\). We will verify \(q\mid n\) is sufficient for \(p^{en+1}-1\equiv p-1\pmod{q^{k+1}}\) to hold: indeed, \[p^{en}\equiv\big(\text{const}\cdot q^k+1\big)^{en}\equiv en\cdot q^k+1\equiv1\pmod{q^{k+1}}.\]\(\blacksquare\)

Therefore, the smallest \(n\) is \(\operatorname{lcm}(43\cdot42,47\cdot46)=2\cdot3\cdot7\cdot23\cdot43\cdot47\), and the requested sum is \(2+3+7+23+43+47=125\).
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franchester
1487 posts
#9 • 47 Y
Y by fuzimiao2013, Greg928u, yofro, Frestho, dchenmathcounts, fidgetboss_4000, awin, centslordm, ForeverAPenguin47, awsomek, 329020, couplefire, mathleticguyyy, factored.radical, Spacesam, Mathscienceclass, kevinmathz, TheGrindReturns, ppanther, Synapse2718, nikhil.mudumbi, HrishiP, thanosaops, PureSwag, HamstPan38825, skipiano, Hamroldt, OlympusHero, pith0n, mathtiger6, samrocksnature, Aryan-23, rg_ryse, megarnie, hellomath010118, suvamkonar, pog, rayfish, 606234, PIartist, eagles2018, spiritshine1234, yoight, EpicBird08, aidan0626, happypi31415, Alex-131
035 gang rise up
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CT17
1481 posts
#10 • 2 Y
Y by tenebrine, samrocksnature
vsamc wrote:
it's $n = \text{lcm}(2021, \phi(2021))$. its equivalent to showing tru for primes, so $\frac{p^{n+1} - 1}{p-1} - 1 \equiv 0\pmod{2021}\iff \frac{p^{n+1} - p}{p-1}\equiv 0$. Use LTE if $43 | p-1, 47 | p-1$ to get $2021 | n$, and if otherwise and $p\neq 43, 47$ it just becomes $p^n\equiv 1\pmod{2021}$, so $\phi(2021) | n$. If $p = 43, p = 47$ we just get $\text{ord}_{47}(43)$, $\text{ord}_{43}(47)$ which divide $\phi(2021)$ so we can forget about those

During the test I miscalculated $\text{ord}_{47}(43)$ and $\text{ord}_{43}(47)$ because $47 - 43 = 2$ and multiplied a bunch of extra stuff to $n$ :wallbash:
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fuzimiao2013
3302 posts
#11 • 4 Y
Y by samrocksnature, Mango247, Mango247, Mango247
wait why isn't it 035?
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IAmTheHazard
5000 posts
#12 • 3 Y
Y by samrocksnature, centslordm, metricpaper
fuzimiao2013 wrote:
wait why isn't it 035?

Primes such that $p-1$ is divisible by 43 or 47 break the denominator of the fraction thingy
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sidchukkayapally
669 posts
#13 • 1 Y
Y by samrocksnature
franchester wrote:
035 gang rise up

Nearly put that but caught my silly, only to make an addition mistake.
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cosmicgenius
1484 posts
#14 • 1 Y
Y by samrocksnature
@6above Why so complicated? If $p \equiv 1 \pmod q$, we have
\[\frac{p^{en+1}-1}{p-1} \equiv p^{en} + p^{en-1} + \dots + 1 \equiv en + 1 \equiv 1 \pmod q,\]i.e. $q\mid n$.
This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by cosmicgenius, Mar 11, 2021, 5:16 PM
Reason: why do i use |
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DottedCaculator
7326 posts
#15 • 1 Y
Y by samrocksnature
franchester wrote:
035 gang rise up

yes x^n+...+x+1 is n mod p when x = 1 mod p
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