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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
Apr 2, 2025
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]
Our full course list for upcoming classes is below:
All classes run 7:30pm-8:45pm ET/4:30pm - 5:45pm PT unless otherwise noted.

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0 replies
jlacosta
Apr 2, 2025
0 replies
k i Adding contests to the Contest Collections
dcouchman   1
N Apr 5, 2023 by v_Enhance
Want to help AoPS remain a valuable Olympiad resource? Help us add contests to AoPS's Contest Collections.

Find instructions and a list of contests to add here: https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c40244h1064480_contests_to_add
1 reply
dcouchman
Sep 9, 2019
v_Enhance
Apr 5, 2023
k i C&P posting recs by mods
v_Enhance   0
Jun 12, 2020
The purpose of this post is to lay out a few suggestions about what kind of posts work well for the C&P forum. Except in a few cases these are mostly meant to be "suggestions based on historical trends" rather than firm hard rules; we may eventually replace this with an actual list of firm rules but that requires admin approval :) That said, if you post something in the "discouraged" category, you should not be totally surprised if it gets locked; they are discouraged exactly because past experience shows they tend to go badly.
-----------------------------
1. Program discussion: Allowed
If you have questions about specific camps or programs (e.g. which classes are good at X camp?), these questions fit well here. Many camps/programs have specific sub-forums too but we understand a lot of them are not active.
-----------------------------
2. Results discussion: Allowed
You can make threads about e.g. how you did on contests (including AMC), though on AMC day when there is a lot of discussion. Moderators and administrators may do a lot of thread-merging / forum-wrangling to keep things in one place.
-----------------------------
3. Reposting solutions or questions to past AMC/AIME/USAMO problems: Allowed
This forum contains a post for nearly every problem from AMC8, AMC10, AMC12, AIME, USAJMO, USAMO (and these links give you an index of all these posts). It is always permitted to post a full solution to any problem in its own thread (linked above), regardless of how old the problem is, and even if this solution is similar to one that has already been posted. We encourage this type of posting because it is helpful for the user to explain their solution in full to an audience, and for future users who want to see multiple approaches to a problem or even just the frequency distribution of common approaches. We do ask for some explanation; if you just post "the answer is (B); ez" then you are not adding anything useful.

You are also encouraged to post questions about a specific problem in the specific thread for that problem, or about previous user's solutions. It's almost always better to use the existing thread than to start a new one, to keep all the discussion in one place easily searchable for future visitors.
-----------------------------
4. Advice posts: Allowed, but read below first
You can use this forum to ask for advice about how to prepare for math competitions in general. But you should be aware that this question has been asked many many times. Before making a post, you are encouraged to look at the following:
[list]
[*] Stop looking for the right training: A generic post about advice that keeps getting stickied :)
[*] There is an enormous list of links on the Wiki of books / problems / etc for all levels.
[/list]
When you do post, we really encourage you to be as specific as possible in your question. Tell us about your background, what you've tried already, etc.

Actually, the absolute best way to get a helpful response is to take a few examples of problems that you tried to solve but couldn't, and explain what you tried on them / why you couldn't solve them. Here is a great example of a specific question.
-----------------------------
5. Publicity: use P2P forum instead
See https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2489297_peertopeer_programs_forum.
Some exceptions have been allowed in the past, but these require approval from administrators. (I am not totally sure what the criteria is. I am not an administrator.)
-----------------------------
6. Mock contests: use Mock Contests forum instead
Mock contests should be posted in the dedicated forum instead:
https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c594864_aops_mock_contests
-----------------------------
7. AMC procedural questions: suggest to contact the AMC HQ instead
If you have a question like "how do I submit a change of venue form for the AIME" or "why is my name not on the qualifiers list even though I have a 300 index", you would be better off calling or emailing the AMC program to ask, they are the ones who can help you :)
-----------------------------
8. Discussion of random math problems: suggest to use MSM/HSM/HSO instead
If you are discussing a specific math problem that isn't from the AMC/AIME/USAMO, it's better to post these in Middle School Math, High School Math, High School Olympiads instead.
-----------------------------
9. Politics: suggest to use Round Table instead
There are important conversations to be had about things like gender diversity in math contests, etc., for sure. However, from experience we think that C&P is historically not a good place to have these conversations, as they go off the rails very quickly. We encourage you to use the Round Table instead, where it is much more clear that all posts need to be serious.
-----------------------------
10. MAA complaints: discouraged
We don't want to pretend that the MAA is perfect or that we agree with everything they do. However, we chose to discourage this sort of behavior because in practice most of the comments we see are not useful and some are frankly offensive.
[list] [*] If you just want to blow off steam, do it on your blog instead.
[*] When you have criticism, it should be reasoned, well-thought and constructive. What we mean by this is, for example, when the AOIME was announced, there was great outrage about potential cheating. Well, do you really think that this is something the organizers didn't think about too? Simply posting that "people will cheat and steal my USAMOO qualification, the MAA are idiots!" is not helpful as it is not bringing any new information to the table.
[*] Even if you do have reasoned, well-thought, constructive criticism, we think it is actually better to email it the MAA instead, rather than post it here. Experience shows that even polite, well-meaning suggestions posted in C&P are often derailed by less mature users who insist on complaining about everything.
[/list]
-----------------------------
11. Memes and joke posts: discouraged
It's fine to make jokes or lighthearted posts every so often. But it should be done with discretion. Ideally, jokes should be done within a longer post that has other content. For example, in my response to one user's question about olympiad combinatorics, I used a silly picture of Sogiita Gunha, but it was done within a context of a much longer post where it was meant to actually make a point.

On the other hand, there are many threads which consist largely of posts whose only content is an attached meme with the word "MAA" in it. When done in excess like this, the jokes reflect poorly on the community, so we explicitly discourage them.
-----------------------------
12. Questions that no one can answer: discouraged
Examples of this: "will MIT ask for AOIME scores?", "what will the AIME 2021 cutoffs be (asked in 2020)", etc. Basically, if you ask a question on this forum, it's better if the question is something that a user can plausibly answer :)
-----------------------------
13. Blind speculation: discouraged
Along these lines, if you do see a question that you don't have an answer to, we discourage "blindly guessing" as it leads to spreading of baseless rumors. For example, if you see some user posting "why are there fewer qualifiers than usual this year?", you should not reply "the MAA must have been worried about online cheating so they took fewer people!!". Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
-----------------------------
14. Discussion of cheating: strongly discouraged
If you have evidence or reasonable suspicion of cheating, please report this to your Competition Manager or to the AMC HQ; these forums cannot help you.
Otherwise, please avoid public discussion of cheating. That is: no discussion of methods of cheating, no speculation about how cheating affects cutoffs, and so on --- it is not helpful to anyone, and it creates a sour atmosphere. A longer explanation is given in Seriously, please stop discussing how to cheat.
-----------------------------
15. Cutoff jokes: never allowed
Whenever the cutoffs for any major contest are released, it is very obvious when they are official. In the past, this has been achieved by the numbers being posted on the official AMC website (here) or through a post from the AMCDirector account.

You must never post fake cutoffs, even as a joke. You should also refrain from posting cutoffs that you've heard of via email, etc., because it is better to wait for the obvious official announcement. A longer explanation is given in A Treatise on Cutoff Trolling.
-----------------------------
16. Meanness: never allowed
Being mean is worse than being immature and unproductive. If another user does something which you think is inappropriate, use the Report button to bring the post to moderator attention, or if you really must reply, do so in a way that is tactful and constructive rather than inflammatory.
-----------------------------

Finally, we remind you all to sit back and enjoy the problems. :D

-----------------------------
(EDIT 2024-09-13: AoPS has asked to me to add the following item.)

Advertising paid program or service: never allowed

Per the AoPS Terms of Service (rule 5h), general advertisements are not allowed.

While we do allow advertisements of official contests (at the MAA and MATHCOUNTS level) and those run by college students with at least one successful year, any and all advertisements of a paid service or program is not allowed and will be deleted.
0 replies
v_Enhance
Jun 12, 2020
0 replies
k i Zero tolerance
ZetaX   49
N May 4, 2019 by NoDealsHere
Source: Use your common sense! (enough is enough)
Some users don't want to learn, some other simply ignore advises.
But please follow the following guideline:


To make it short: ALWAYS USE YOUR COMMON SENSE IF POSTING!
If you don't have common sense, don't post.


More specifically:

For new threads:


a) Good, meaningful title:
The title has to say what the problem is about in best way possible.
If that title occured already, it's definitely bad. And contest names aren't good either.
That's in fact a requirement for being able to search old problems.

Examples:
Bad titles:
- "Hard"/"Medium"/"Easy" (if you find it so cool how hard/easy it is, tell it in the post and use a title that tells us the problem)
- "Number Theory" (hey guy, guess why this forum's named that way¿ and is it the only such problem on earth¿)
- "Fibonacci" (there are millions of Fibonacci problems out there, all posted and named the same...)
- "Chinese TST 2003" (does this say anything about the problem¿)
Good titles:
- "On divisors of a³+2b³+4c³-6abc"
- "Number of solutions to x²+y²=6z²"
- "Fibonacci numbers are never squares"


b) Use search function:
Before posting a "new" problem spend at least two, better five, minutes to look if this problem was posted before. If it was, don't repost it. If you have anything important to say on topic, post it in one of the older threads.
If the thread is locked cause of this, use search function.

Update (by Amir Hossein). The best way to search for two keywords in AoPS is to input
[code]+"first keyword" +"second keyword"[/code]
so that any post containing both strings "first word" and "second form".


c) Good problem statement:
Some recent really bad post was:
[quote]$lim_{n\to 1}^{+\infty}\frac{1}{n}-lnn$[/quote]
It contains no question and no answer.
If you do this, too, you are on the best way to get your thread deleted. Write everything clearly, define where your variables come from (and define the "natural" numbers if used). Additionally read your post at least twice before submitting. After you sent it, read it again and use the Edit-Button if necessary to correct errors.


For answers to already existing threads:


d) Of any interest and with content:
Don't post things that are more trivial than completely obvious. For example, if the question is to solve $x^{3}+y^{3}=z^{3}$, do not answer with "$x=y=z=0$ is a solution" only. Either you post any kind of proof or at least something unexpected (like "$x=1337, y=481, z=42$ is the smallest solution). Someone that does not see that $x=y=z=0$ is a solution of the above without your post is completely wrong here, this is an IMO-level forum.
Similar, posting "I have solved this problem" but not posting anything else is not welcome; it even looks that you just want to show off what a genius you are.

e) Well written and checked answers:
Like c) for new threads, check your solutions at least twice for mistakes. And after sending, read it again and use the Edit-Button if necessary to correct errors.



To repeat it: ALWAYS USE YOUR COMMON SENSE IF POSTING!


Everything definitely out of range of common sense will be locked or deleted (exept for new users having less than about 42 posts, they are newbies and need/get some time to learn).

The above rules will be applied from next monday (5. march of 2007).
Feel free to discuss on this here.
49 replies
ZetaX
Feb 27, 2007
NoDealsHere
May 4, 2019
2025 ELMOCOUNTS - Mock MATHCOUNTS Nationals
vincentwant   94
N 27 minutes ago by ethan2011
text totally not copied over from wmc (thanks jason <3)
Quick Links:
[list=disc]
[*] National: (Sprint) (Target) (Team) (Sprint + Target Submission) (Team Submission) [/*]
[*] Miscellaneous: (Leaderboard) (Sprint + Target Private Discussion Forum) (Team Discussion Forum)[/*]
[/list]
-----
Eddison Chen (KS '22 '24), Aarush Goradia (CO '24), Ethan Imanuel (NJ '24), Benjamin Jiang (FL '23 '24), Rayoon Kim (PA '23 '24), Jason Lee (NC '23 '24), Puranjay Madupu (AZ '23 '24), Andy Mo (OH '23 '24), George Paret (FL '24), Arjun Raman (IN '24), Vincent Wang (TX '24), Channing Yang (TX '23 '24), and Jefferson Zhou (MN '23 '24) present:



[center]IMAGE[/center]

[center]Image credits to Simon Joeng.[/center]

2024 MATHCOUNTS Nationals alumni from all across the nation have come together to administer the first-ever ELMOCOUNTS Competition, a mock written by the 2024 Nationals alumni given to the 2025 Nationals participants. By providing the next generation of mathletes with free, high quality practice, we're here to boast how strong of an alumni community MATHCOUNTS has, as well as foster interest in the beautiful art that is problem writing!

The tests and their corresponding submissions forms will be released here, on this thread, on Monday, April 21, 2025. The deadline is May 10, 2025. Tests can be administered asynchronously at your home or school, and your answers should be submitted to the corresponding submission form. If you include your AoPS username in your submission, you will be granted access to the private discussion forum on AoPS, where you can discuss the tests even before the deadline.
[list=disc]
[*] "How do I know these tests are worth my time?" [/*]
[*] "Who can participate?" [/*]
[*] "How do I sign up?" [/*]
[*] "What if I have multiple students?" [/*]
[*] "What if a problem is ambiguous, incorrect, etc.?" [/*]
[*] "Will there be solutions?" [/*]
[*] "Will there be a Countdown Round administered?" [/*]
[/list]
If you have any other questions, feel free to email us at elmocounts2025@gmail.com (or PM me)!
94 replies
vincentwant
Sunday at 6:29 PM
ethan2011
27 minutes ago
MOP Emails
hellohannah   108
N 29 minutes ago by ethan2011
So mop emails are probably coming tomorrow, feel free to discuss here. I'll probably post when I hear that they're out unless I'm asleep
108 replies
+2 w
hellohannah
Yesterday at 4:59 AM
ethan2011
29 minutes ago
[$10K+ IN PRIZES] Poolesville Math Tournament (PVMT) 2025
qwerty123456asdfgzxcvb   9
N an hour ago by Stormersyle
Hi everyone!

After the resounding success of the first three years of PVMT, the Poolesville High School Math Team is excited to announce the fourth annual Poolesville High School Math Tournament (PVMT)! The PVMT team includes a MOPper and multiple USA(J)MO and AIME qualifiers!

PVMT is open to all 6th-9th graders in the country (including rising 10th graders). Students will compete in teams of up to 4 people, and each participant will take three subject tests as well as the team round. The contest is completely free, and will be held virtually on June 7, 2025, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM (EST).

Additionally, thanks to our sponsors, we will be awarding approximately $10K+ worth of prizes (including gift cards, Citadel merch, AoPS coupons, Wolfram licenses) to top teams and individuals. More details regarding the actual prizes will be released as we get closer to the competition date.

Further, newly for this year we might run some interesting mini-events, which we will announce closer to the competition date, such as potentially a puzzle hunt and integration bee!

If you would like to register for the competition, the registration form can be found at https://pvmt.org/register.html or https://tinyurl.com/PVMT25.

Additionally, more information about PVMT can be found at https://pvmt.org

If you have any questions not answered in the below FAQ, feel free to ask in this thread or email us at falconsdomath@gmail.com!

We look forward to your participation!

FAQ
9 replies
qwerty123456asdfgzxcvb
Apr 5, 2025
Stormersyle
an hour ago
Integer representation
RL_parkgong_0106   0
an hour ago
Source: Own
Show that for any positive integer $n$, there exists some positive integer $k$ that makes the following equation have no integer root $(x_1, x_2, x_3, \dots, x_n)$.

$$x_1^{2^1}+x_2^{2^2}+x_3^{2^3}+\dots+x_n^{2^n}=k$$
0 replies
RL_parkgong_0106
an hour ago
0 replies
A cyclic inequality
KhuongTrang   1
N an hour ago by jokehim
Source: own-CRUX
IMAGE
https://cms.math.ca/.../uploads/2025/04/Wholeissue_51_4.pdf
1 reply
KhuongTrang
Yesterday at 4:18 PM
jokehim
an hour ago
Diophantine equation !
ComplexPhi   6
N 2 hours ago by Mr.Sharkman
Source: Romania JBMO TST 2015 Day 1 Problem 4
Solve in nonnegative integers the following equation :
$$21^x+4^y=z^2$$
6 replies
ComplexPhi
May 14, 2015
Mr.Sharkman
2 hours ago
Cool sequence problem
AlephG_64   1
N 2 hours ago by FarrukhKhayitboyev
Source: 2025 Finals Portuguese Mathematical Olympiad P3
A computer science teacher has asked his students to write a program that, given a list of $n$ numbers $a_1, a_2, ..., a_n$, calculates the list $b_1, b_2, ..., b_n$ where $b_k$ is the number of times the number $a_k$ appears in the list. So, for example, for the list $1,2,3,1$, the program returns the list $2,1,1,2$.

Next, the teacher asked Alexandre to run the program for a list of $2025$ numbers. Then he asked him to apply the program to the resulting list, and so on, until a number greater than or equal to $k$ appears in the list. Find the largest value of $k$ for which, whatever the initial list of $2025$ positive integers $a_1, a_2, ..., a_{2025}$, it is possible for Alexander to do what the teacher asked him to do.
1 reply
AlephG_64
Apr 5, 2025
FarrukhKhayitboyev
2 hours ago
Inequality
hlminh   1
N 2 hours ago by arqady
Let $a,b,c>0$ such that $a^2+b^2+c^2=3.$ Prove that $\sum \frac a{\sqrt{b^2+b+c}}\leq \sqrt 3.$
1 reply
hlminh
Yesterday at 9:36 AM
arqady
2 hours ago
IMO Shortlist 2014 N6
hajimbrak   27
N 2 hours ago by cj13609517288
Let $a_1 < a_2 <  \cdots <a_n$ be pairwise coprime positive integers with $a_1$ being prime and $a_1 \ge n + 2$. On the segment $I = [0, a_1 a_2  \cdots a_n ]$ of the real line, mark all integers that are divisible by at least one of the numbers $a_1 ,   \ldots , a_n$ . These points split $I$ into a number of smaller segments. Prove that the sum of the squares of the lengths of these segments is divisible by $a_1$.

Proposed by Serbia
27 replies
hajimbrak
Jul 11, 2015
cj13609517288
2 hours ago
FE inequality from Iran
mojyla222   3
N 2 hours ago by amir_ali
Source: Iran 2025 second round P5
Find all functions $f:\mathbb{R}^+ \to \mathbb{R}$ such that for all $x,y,z>0$
$$
3(x^3+y^3+z^3)\geq f(x+y+z)\cdot f(xy+yz+xz) \geq (x+y+z)(xy+yz+xz).
$$
3 replies
mojyla222
Apr 19, 2025
amir_ali
2 hours ago
binomial sum ratio
thewayofthe_dragon   2
N 2 hours ago by P162008
Source: YT
Someone please evaluate this ratio inside the log for any given n(I feel the sum doesn't have any nice closed form).
2 replies
thewayofthe_dragon
Jun 16, 2024
P162008
2 hours ago
Maximum Area of a triangle formed by 3 Lines
Kunihiko_Chikaya   1
N 2 hours ago by Mathzeus1024
Let $a>1.$ In the $xy-$ plane with the origin $O$, the line $y=2-ax$ intersects the lines $y=x$, and $y=ax$ at the points $A,\ B$, respectively. Find the maximum value of the area of $\triangle{OAB}.$
1 reply
Kunihiko_Chikaya
Sep 28, 2020
Mathzeus1024
2 hours ago
Ring out the Old Year and ring in the New.
Kunihiko_Chikaya   1
N 3 hours ago by Mathzeus1024
Let $a,\ b,\ c$ be positive real numbers.

Prove that

$$\sqrt[3]{\left(\frac{a^{2022}-a}{b}+\frac{2021}{a^{\frac{a}{b}}}+1\right)\left(\frac{b^{2022}-b}{c}+\frac{2021}{b^{\frac{b}{c}}}+1\right)\left(\frac{c^{2022}-c}{a}+\frac{2021}{c^{\frac{c}{a}}}+1\right)}$$
$$\geq 2022.$$
Proposed by Kunihiko Chikaya/December 31, 2021
1 reply
Kunihiko_Chikaya
Dec 31, 2021
Mathzeus1024
3 hours ago
MathPath
PatTheKing806   5
N 3 hours ago by eyzMath
Is anybody else going to MathPath?

I haven't gotten in. its been 3+ weeks since they said my application was done.
5 replies
PatTheKing806
Mar 24, 2025
eyzMath
3 hours ago
C&P posting recs by mods
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v_Enhance
6874 posts
#1 • 262 Y
Y by EZmath2006, OliverA, blacksheep2003, I-_-I, kevinmathz, Toinfinity, 277546, greenturtle3141, goseahawks, djmathman, GeronimoStilton, Zorger74, OronSH, montana_mathlete, usernameyourself, hdrcure, khina, fidgetboss_4000, LauraZed, Lcz, Bowser498, 329020, smartguy888, fatant, ghu2024, Bobcats, OlympusHero, ETS1331, KoolKat6, fluffyclouds, leequack, JacobGuo, Greenleaf5002, Imayormaynotknowcalculus, cmsgr8er, reaganchoi, Mudkipswims42, divijleisha, mathleticguyyy, PROA200, Inconsistent, CoolCarsOnTheRun, vvluo, mlgjeffdoge21, rayfish, Vndom, csunllc, Mathemagician10, middletonkids, freeman66, Snowyowl2005, Bltbob, nikenissan, mathdragon2000, MarkBcc168, parmenides51, cybercooltech_aops, jj2014, rf20008, scrabbler94, sshi, mathisawesome2169, AngelaLZ, amar_04, Ultroid999OCPN, vsamc, richy, yrnsmurf, Smileyklaws, samuel, kidcrumb10, Atpar, ishankhare, arisettyjr, cubical, SpinTop, coolmath_2018, niyu, super.shamik, Binomial-theorem, NamePending, MeHateMemes, Calculusmaster789, smartatmath, ChromeRaptor777, electrovector, smartninja2000, steven2015, smartkmd1, GCA, tapir1729, ksdicecream, claserken, sargamsujit, anc3, FIREDRAGONMATH16, SnowPanda, Aspiring_Mathletes, mathNart, DSL13, hamburgerwhizz, happyhippos, rocketsri, AdolphHitler, Spaced_Out, reniebeanbean, wamofan, poplintos, justJen, aaja3427, Adventure10, ilovepizza2020, nicarmt, JimY, Mrdavid445, HamstPan38825, ProblemSolver2048, amazingxin777, Pi-rate, SciBoy2000, gladIasked, v4913, Math_olympics, centslordm, superagh, Possible, third_one_is_jerk, Kaisun, LOGYC, etvat, Supernova283, Shauryajain123, a_friendwr_a, naren_pr, RubixMaster21, ihatemath123, eggybonk, hwdaniel, ostriches88, spark1016, RedFlame2112, winterrain01, Jc426, sotpidot, VDR, MERC12345, cowcow, RedFireTruck, rg_ryse, cryptographer, VKU427, kavya.rajesh, 606234, Gumball, Eat314, Bradygho, suvamkonar, AOPqghj, RaymondZhu, Rg230403, varunkute, magicarrow, Testking, TryhardMathlete, pragna0527, NumberX, son7, icematrix2, vqbc, NoSignOfTheta, dudavid, samrocksnature, bsu1, Apple321, Instance, Siddharth03, megarnie, Bildungsroman, andyloo666, DankBasher619, jhu08, 618173, abvk1718, Jndd, Nutty_Nitty, Lol_man000, asimov, eagles2018, ASweatyAsianBoie, pi271828, kante314, air2rz, Pandafan, Robomania_534, HWenslawski, Lamboreghini, mathflowers, exp-ipi-1, Pranav1056, flamewavelight, mahaler, Sotowa, Sehraskar, math31415926535, brainfertilzer, fuzimiao2013, shadow09, MathNinja234, pikapika007, bronzetruck2016, AlphaBetaGammaOmega, Math4Life2020, llr, Crabh, loafofbread, ImSh95, bingo2019, Cygnet, sehgalsh, rohan.sp, ScavengerofPlanetC929, NTfish, Lucasfunnyface, EpicBird08, andrewandamy, duskstream, EthanHL, peelybonehead, jmiao, awesomehuman, mathmax12, Danielzh, Amir Hossein, AlienGirl05, ultimate_life_form, lpieleanu, feliciaxu, jf123456, HighWater, pieMax2713, ujulee, tigeryong, Mathicorn_1, Dhira, Sedro, Yrock, aops-g5-gethsemanea2, Shadow_Sniper, NeuralNetwork, Spiritpalm, aidan0626, Andrew2019, DU4532, rty, Blue_banana4, K124659, missionsqhc, amaops1123, Pengu14, MathFanChar, cubres, franklin2013
The purpose of this post is to lay out a few suggestions about what kind of posts work well for the C&P forum. Except in a few cases these are mostly meant to be "suggestions based on historical trends" rather than firm hard rules; we may eventually replace this with an actual list of firm rules but that requires admin approval :) That said, if you post something in the "discouraged" category, you should not be totally surprised if it gets locked; they are discouraged exactly because past experience shows they tend to go badly.
1. Program discussion: Allowed
If you have questions about specific camps or programs (e.g. which classes are good at X camp?), these questions fit well here. Many camps/programs have specific sub-forums too but we understand a lot of them are not active.
2. Results discussion: Allowed
You can make threads about e.g. how you did on contests (including AMC), though on AMC day when there is a lot of discussion. Moderators and administrators may do a lot of thread-merging / forum-wrangling to keep things in one place.
3. Reposting solutions or questions to past AMC/AIME/USAMO problems: Allowed
This forum contains a post for nearly every problem from AMC8, AMC10, AMC12, AIME, USAJMO, USAMO (and these links give you an index of all these posts). It is always permitted to post a full solution to any problem in its own thread (linked above), regardless of how old the problem is, and even if this solution is similar to one that has already been posted. We encourage this type of posting because it is helpful for the user to explain their solution in full to an audience, and for future users who want to see multiple approaches to a problem or even just the frequency distribution of common approaches. We do ask for some explanation; if you just post "the answer is (B); ez" then you are not adding anything useful.

You are also encouraged to post questions about a specific problem in the specific thread for that problem, or about previous user's solutions. It's almost always better to use the existing thread than to start a new one, to keep all the discussion in one place easily searchable for future visitors.
4. Advice posts: Allowed, but read below first
You can use this forum to ask for advice about how to prepare for math competitions in general. But you should be aware that this question has been asked many many times. Before making a post, you are encouraged to look at the following: When you do post, we really encourage you to be as specific as possible in your question. Tell us about your background, what you've tried already, etc.

Actually, the absolute best way to get a helpful response is to take a few examples of problems that you tried to solve but couldn't, and explain what you tried on them / why you couldn't solve them. Here is a great example of a specific question.
5. Publicity: use P2P forum instead
See https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2489297_peertopeer_programs_forum.
Some exceptions have been allowed in the past, but these require approval from administrators. (I am not totally sure what the criteria is. I am not an administrator.)
6. Mock contests: use Mock Contests forum instead
Mock contests should be posted in the dedicated forum instead:
https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c594864_aops_mock_contests
7. AMC procedural questions: suggest to contact the AMC HQ instead
If you have a question like "how do I submit a change of venue form for the AIME" or "why is my name not on the qualifiers list even though I have a 300 index", you would be better off calling or emailing the AMC program to ask, they are the ones who can help you :)
8. Discussion of random math problems: suggest to use MSM/HSM/HSO instead
If you are discussing a specific math problem that isn't from the AMC/AIME/USAMO, it's better to post these in Middle School Math, High School Math, High School Olympiads instead.
9. Politics: suggest to use Round Table instead
There are important conversations to be had about things like gender diversity in math contests, etc., for sure. However, from experience we think that C&P is historically not a good place to have these conversations, as they go off the rails very quickly. We encourage you to use the Round Table instead, where it is much more clear that all posts need to be serious.
10. MAA complaints: discouraged
We don't want to pretend that the MAA is perfect or that we agree with everything they do. However, we chose to discourage this sort of behavior because in practice most of the comments we see are not useful and some are frankly offensive.
  • If you just want to blow off steam, do it on your blog instead.
  • When you have criticism, it should be reasoned, well-thought and constructive. What we mean by this is, for example, when the AOIME was announced, there was great outrage about potential cheating. Well, do you really think that this is something the organizers didn't think about too? Simply posting that "people will cheat and steal my USAMOO qualification, the MAA are idiots!" is not helpful as it is not bringing any new information to the table.
  • Even if you do have reasoned, well-thought, constructive criticism, we think it is actually better to email it the MAA instead, rather than post it here. Experience shows that even polite, well-meaning suggestions posted in C&P are often derailed by less mature users who insist on complaining about everything.

11. Memes and joke posts: discouraged
It's fine to make jokes or lighthearted posts every so often. But it should be done with discretion. Ideally, jokes should be done within a longer post that has other content. For example, in my response to one user's question about olympiad combinatorics, I used a silly picture of Sogiita Gunha, but it was done within a context of a much longer post where it was meant to actually make a point.

On the other hand, there are many threads which consist largely of posts whose only content is an attached meme with the word "MAA" in it. When done in excess like this, the jokes reflect poorly on the community, so we explicitly discourage them.
12. Questions that no one can answer: discouraged
Examples of this: "will MIT ask for AOIME scores?", "what will the AIME 2021 cutoffs be (asked in 2020)", etc. Basically, if you ask a question on this forum, it's better if the question is something that a user can plausibly answer :)
13. Blind speculation: discouraged
Along these lines, if you do see a question that you don't have an answer to, we discourage "blindly guessing" as it leads to spreading of baseless rumors. For example, if you see some user posting "why are there fewer qualifiers than usual this year?", you should not reply "the MAA must have been worried about online cheating so they took fewer people!!". Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
14. Discussion of cheating: strongly discouraged
If you have evidence or reasonable suspicion of cheating, please report this to your Competition Manager or to the AMC HQ; these forums cannot help you.
Otherwise, please avoid public discussion of cheating. That is: no discussion of methods of cheating, no speculation about how cheating affects cutoffs, and so on --- it is not helpful to anyone, and it creates a sour atmosphere. A longer explanation is given in Seriously, please stop discussing how to cheat.
15. Cutoff jokes: never allowed
Whenever the cutoffs for any major contest are released, it is very obvious when they are official. In the past, this has been achieved by the numbers being posted on the official AMC website (here) or through a post from the AMCDirector account.

You must never post fake cutoffs, even as a joke. You should also refrain from posting cutoffs that you've heard of via email, etc., because it is better to wait for the obvious official announcement. A longer explanation is given in A Treatise on Cutoff Trolling.
16. Meanness: never allowed
Being mean is worse than being immature and unproductive. If another user does something which you think is inappropriate, use the Report button to bring the post to moderator attention, or if you really must reply, do so in a way that is tactful and constructive rather than inflammatory.

Finally, we remind you all to sit back and enjoy the problems. :D

(EDIT 2024-09-13: AoPS has asked to me to add the following item.)

Advertising paid program or service: never allowed

Per the AoPS Terms of Service (rule 5h), general advertisements are not allowed.

While we do allow advertisements of official contests (at the MAA and MATHCOUNTS level) and those run by college students with at least one successful year, any and all advertisements of a paid service or program is not allowed and will be deleted.
This post has been edited 11 times. Last edited by v_Enhance, Sep 13, 2024, 11:44 PM
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