So yeah when I mean "this" I'm talking about my chance at US IMO (sorry if that wasn't clear ).

Your question made me think about how I feel, and it was actually pretty difficult and enlightening. First I want to say that I'm definitely satisfied with everything I've done so far - in high school I never expected to do anything more than qualify for AIME, actually.

I've come to the conclusion that it's actually what I consider to be the worst part of my personality that's making this matter to me. This worst part of my personality is actually a combo of two pretty bad things. The first is that I'm actually not very confident about my math ability at all - before every competition I feel like I'm going to choke, and before every camp or team meeting (like for ARML) I sometimes feel like I'm way out of my depth. The second thing is, I get really jealous and really competitive. I place importance in things that really don't have any. This combination of envy and insecurity is really bad - not only does it make me feel bad and super nervous before every contest, but it probably adversely affects my relationship with others. When I look back on my experience at the Ross Math Program two years ago (which was one of the best experiences of my life), I think about how I made every problem set into a race and instead of enjoying more of the social aspects of the camp, I worked alone for a long time and got angry when I couldn't solve something. Even worse, when I reflect on how I acted at MOP (and to a lesser extent, at AMSP), I feel bad because I must have seemed like a wholly unsavory person. I was really threatened by how incredible everyone was, and to make up for that I did stupid things like call out in class in an effort to not seem dumb. I don't know if other MOPpers saw me this way, but I wish I could have been more "chill."

So the reason I care so much abut IMO is because of vile, inherent jealousy. If I don't make IMO, I'll feel inferior to people who do. It's really bad.

I've matured since Ross, and even since last summer. Hopefully, before I go to college, I'll be able to get rid of these pretty bad aspects of my personality.

Now, I may have exaggerated a little in this post. Most of my time spent at these camps was used for learning and collaborating with amazing people. I train for math not to beat others, but to have fun, because math is beautiful. I want to go to the IMO because of the amazing experience, not for the prestige. But, I have to admit that sometimes, my motives aren't all that pure.

Sorry about the long winded response happiface, your question just really made me think.

Good luck

Whoa 1 full chapter of PFTB a day is slightly ridiculous. Also if you do that you'll probably cover a lot of easy content but not hard content.

"So the reason I care so much abut IMO is because of vile, inherent jealousy. If I don't make IMO, I'll feel inferior to people who do. It's really bad."

Wait what... hmmm... oops what if I am one of these people? Darn I do understand these feelings.

Well you have solved plenty of IMO problems on your blog. Although I have no clue of time limits, whether you have seen ideas on them before, and so on you have been doing them.

My bet is that you will be one of those people Ryan

Also, what would you suggest doing to learn "harder material?" I was under the impression that PFTB was pretty hard...

Thanks for your encouragement Wolstenholme.

Also yes NAA is right - setting a one chapter a day goal is likely to cause you to do a lot of easy problems and not the hard ones. This is especially when you say that you want to do all of the "doable" problems and then don't define it. "Doable" is going to end up meaning "easy."

So in the last three days I've actually gotten through the first three chapters plus all of IMO 2008 plus two handouts/articles - the way I'm handling PFTB is skipping all the easy stuff and ONLy doing the hard stuff actually

what is IMO.com?
IMO.com is a weird link...

^ sorry I meant IMOmath.com