Mathcounts STRATEGIES

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Existing_Human1

187 posts

Existing_Human1

#1 h Mar 20, 2025, 7:27 PM

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Hello commuinty!

I am wondering what your strategies are for mathcounts. Please note I do not mean tips. These can be for all rounds, but please specify. BTW, this is for state, but it can apply to any competition.

Ex:
Team - sit in a specific order
Target - do the easiest first
Sprint - go as fast as possible

I just made up the examples, and you will probably have better strategies, so if you want to help out, please do

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franklin2013

179 posts

franklin2013

#2 h Mar 20, 2025, 7:29 PM

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Team - Divide questions up as follows:
Best person: 2, 6, 10
2nd best: 1, 5, 9
3rd: 3, 7
4th: 4, 8
And adjust if someone thinks they give up or someone else has finished etc.

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mathelvin

45 posts

mathelvin

#4 h Mar 20, 2025, 7:48 PM

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I’ve been noticing that on the state targets from past years all the odd numbered questions are really easy and all the even ones are hard. So the order of difficulty is like somewhere near 1, 3, 5, 7 or 2, 4, 6, 8

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Existing_Human1

187 posts

Existing_Human1

#6 h Mar 21, 2025, 12:40 AM

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What about sprint?

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huajun78

30 posts

huajun78

#8 h Mar 21, 2025, 12:42 AM

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mathelvin wrote:

I’ve been noticing that on the state targets from past years all the odd numbered questions are really easy and all the even ones are hard. So the order of difficulty is like somewhere near 1, 3, 5, 7 or 2, 4, 6, 8

I think the question makers make them that way on purpose

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ethan2011

225 posts

ethan2011

#9 h Mar 21, 2025, 12:57 AM

Y by

franklin2013 wrote:

Team - Divide questions up as follows:
Best person: 2, 6, 10
2nd best: 1, 5, 9
3rd: 3, 7
4th: 4, 8
And adjust if someone thinks they give up or someone else has finished etc.

me when i had to do last 4 and proceeded to silly 2 of them
no other ppl in my school do comp math

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jb2015007

1712 posts

jb2015007

#10 h Mar 21, 2025, 1:01 AM

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bruh we accomplish nothing when we do team rounds lol
all my teammates do is bark and i cant stop them
and my dude forgot how to round to the nearest whole number costing us a perfect score on a state team

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Andyluo

862 posts

Andyluo

#11 h Mar 21, 2025, 1:08 AM

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Team:

Best: 7,9,10
2nd: 6,8
3rd and 4th do 1-5 together
Everyone goes last 5 in the last ~8 minutes

Sprint:

Try to be calm, and go through 1-20 carefully, check in about 5 minutes, you got 15 minutes for final 10

Target

ordering is 1,3,5,2,7,4,6,8

Try to at least get the odd numbered question right for sure

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DreamineYT

272 posts

DreamineYT

#12 h Mar 21, 2025, 1:18 AM

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mathelvin wrote:

I’ve been noticing that on the state targets from past years all the odd numbered questions are really easy and all the even ones are hard. So the order of difficulty is like somewhere near 1, 3, 5, 7 or 2, 4, 6, 8

It's so that you can easily do the odd numbered problem and have time to do the even numbered problem.

For team, I would maybe reccomend the following strategy:
Best person: 10-5 in this order
2nd Best: 5-10
3rd Best: 5-1
4th Best: 1-5

However, this only works because our school has reliable 3rd and 4th people. I would not reccomend this if you're one of those schools with one carrier.

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jb2015007

1712 posts

jb2015007

#13 h Mar 21, 2025, 1:19 AM

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if its one carrier what do u recommend
because as i said all my teammates do is bark

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chesswillow

197 posts

chesswillow

#14 h Mar 21, 2025, 2:13 AM

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For target I would say answer every question (except maybe 6 and 8 in some cases), try to avoid sillies on the first 4, and for the last 4, focus on 5 and 7 and don't waste all your time on 6 and 8 after taking a very short amount of time for 5 and 7.

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mathelvin

45 posts

mathelvin

#15 h Mar 21, 2025, 2:29 AM

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jb2015007 wrote:

if its one carrier what do u recommend
because as i said all my teammates do is bark

At that point you would either
1. Get your teammates to lock in
2. Rank the best teammates and if they are all kind of the same just hope for the best

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jb2015007

1712 posts

jb2015007

#16 h Mar 21, 2025, 2:33 AM

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1. im not captain and im the only 7th grader and everyone else is at least 2 years older than me so no one listens to me lol
2. their all kinda 4th place and the captain steals the easy questions and get like 2-4 of them wrong

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mathelvin

45 posts

mathelvin

#17 h Mar 21, 2025, 2:40 AM

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I guess since it’s state, team doesn’t really matter for nationals

This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by mathelvin, Mar 21, 2025, 2:41 AM
Reason: Simplification

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jb2015007

1712 posts

jb2015007

#18 h Mar 21, 2025, 2:49 AM

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oh ya true

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ohiorizzler1434

725 posts

ohiorizzler1434

#19 h Mar 21, 2025, 3:47 AM

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I've got a fantastic strategy! Practice mental arithmetic repeatedly, with large numbers, to develop a mathmatical intuition that helps in live rounds!

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mathenrichmentaops

546 posts

mathenrichmentaops

#20 h Mar 21, 2025, 3:54 AM

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franklin2013 wrote:

Team - Divide questions up as follows:
Best person: 2, 6, 10
2nd best: 1, 5, 9
3rd: 3, 7
4th: 4, 8
And adjust if someone thinks they give up or someone else has finished etc.

hm for chapter we made lowest two people in terms of skill do 1-5 together, i did 6-8, and 2nd best did 9-10, idk if thats good strategy tho

however team round was pretty easy we had last 5 minutes for rechecking

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Soupboy0

164 posts

Soupboy0

#21 h Friday at 2:33 PM • 1 Y

Y by franklin2013

bro our team finished chapter team round in 8 minutes :rotfl:

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ericwengcn

9 posts

ericwengcn

#22 h Friday at 10:22 PM

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For the chapter, two members did the odd questions, one working from 1 and up while the other did 9 and down. Then, the other two members did the same but for even numbers.

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Existing_Human1

187 posts

Existing_Human1

#23 h Friday at 10:28 PM

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What about for sprint?

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giratina3

445 posts

giratina3

#24 h Friday at 10:55 PM

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I did all last 4 and the rest of my teammates did the rest so that’s that for chapter team round

This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by giratina3, Friday at 10:56 PM

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athreyay

485 posts

athreyay

#25 h Friday at 11:51 PM

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Andyluo wrote:

Team:

Best: 7,9,10
2nd: 6,8
3rd and 4th do 1-5 together
Everyone goes last 5 in the last ~8 minutes

Sprint:

Try to be calm, and go through 1-20 carefully, check in about 5 minutes, you got 15 minutes for final 10

Target

ordering is 1,3,5,2,7,4,6,8

Try to at least get the odd numbered question right for sure

This was how our team did it, and it worked out pretty well.

Best/Second best: 7,8,9,10(whichever ones seem easy for one person, let that person do it. Otherwise, best does rest. 7 is last)
Third: 5,6,7(if extra time, do 7)
Fourth: 1,2,3,4

When we checked, we had a piece of paper in which we wrote down the answers in the middle. Then once we checked, we put a check mark.

It works out well if all of your team members do their part.

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Nioronean

99 posts

Nioronean

#26 h Yesterday at 12:16 AM

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huajun78 wrote:

mathelvin wrote:

I’ve been noticing that on the state targets from past years all the odd numbered questions are really easy and all the even ones are hard. So the order of difficulty is like somewhere near 1, 3, 5, 7 or 2, 4, 6, 8

I think the question makers make them that way on purpose

Because its kinda unfair to cram two super hard problems into the last 6 minutes when they can make it so you have close to 6 minutes to solve 2 hard problems each by changing #7 difficulty to #6

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DreamineYT

272 posts

DreamineYT

#27 h Yesterday at 1:57 AM

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jb2015007 wrote:

if its one carrier what do u recommend
because as i said all my teammates do is bark

Do the whole test, starting from number one.

Otherwise, if theres another person you can trust, you work 6-10 and he can work 1-5 and check his work in the last 5-8 minutes.

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jb2015007

1712 posts

jb2015007

#28 h Yesterday at 2:17 AM

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ok bro thats a stretch lol

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Existing_Human1

187 posts

Existing_Human1

#29 h Yesterday at 2:25 AM

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What about sprint?

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Andyluo

862 posts

Andyluo

#30 h Yesterday at 2:33 AM

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It depends how good you are at math, in addition to your teammates, end of story

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giratina3

445 posts

giratina3

#31 h Yesterday at 4:23 AM

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I try to tell the second best teammate on our school team to at least try #6 and #7 on team round... but that just say they can't solve it and proceed to first five.

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chesswillow

197 posts

chesswillow

#32 h 2 hours ago

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I don't know if somebody has said this already, but don't try to spend more than 5 minutes on a sprint problem, and by 5 minutes, unless you're really close, maybe move on.

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