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k a July Highlights and 2025 AoPS Online Class Information
jwelsh   0
Jul 1, 2025
We are halfway through summer, so be sure to carve out some time to keep your skills sharp and explore challenging topics at AoPS Online and our AoPS Academies (including the Virtual Campus)!

[list][*]Over 60 summer classes are starting at the Virtual Campus on July 7th - check out the math and language arts options for middle through high school levels.
[*]At AoPS Online, we have accelerated sections where you can complete a course in half the time by meeting twice/week instead of once/week, starting on July 8th:
[list][*]MATHCOUNTS/AMC 8 Basics
[*]MATHCOUNTS/AMC 8 Advanced
[*]AMC Problem Series[/list]
[*]Plus, AoPS Online has a special seminar July 14 - 17 that is outside the standard fare: Paradoxes and Infinity
[*]We are expanding our in-person AoPS Academy locations - are you looking for a strong community of problem solvers, exemplary instruction, and math and language arts options? Look to see if we have a location near you and enroll in summer camps or academic year classes today! New locations include campuses in California, Georgia, New York, Illinois, and Oregon and more coming soon![/list]

MOP (Math Olympiad Summer Program) just ended and the IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad) is right around the corner! This year’s IMO will be held in Australia, July 10th - 20th. Congratulations to all the MOP students for reaching this incredible level and best of luck to all selected to represent their countries at this year’s IMO! Did you know that, in the last 10 years, 59 USA International Math Olympiad team members have medaled and have taken over 360 AoPS Online courses. Take advantage of our Worldwide Online Olympiad Training (WOOT) courses
and train with the best! Please note that early bird pricing ends August 19th!
Are you tired of the heat and thinking about Fall? You can plan your Fall schedule now with classes at either AoPS Online, AoPS Academy Virtual Campus, or one of our AoPS Academies around the US.

Our full course list for upcoming classes is below:
All classes start 7:30pm ET/4:30pm PT unless otherwise noted.

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0 replies
jwelsh
Jul 1, 2025
0 replies
k i Peer-to-Peer Programs Forum
jwelsh   157
N Dec 11, 2023 by cw357
Many of our AoPS Community members share their knowledge with their peers in a variety of ways, ranging from creating mock contests to creating real contests to writing handouts to hosting sessions as part of our partnership with schoolhouse.world.

To facilitate students in these efforts, we have created a new Peer-to-Peer Programs forum. With the creation of this forum, we are starting a new process for those of you who want to advertise your efforts. These advertisements and ensuing discussions have been cluttering up some of the forums that were meant for other purposes, so we’re gathering these topics in one place. This also allows students to find new peer-to-peer learning opportunities without having to poke around all the other forums.

To announce your program, or to invite others to work with you on it, here’s what to do:

1) Post a new topic in the Peer-to-Peer Programs forum. This will be the discussion thread for your program.

2) Post a single brief post in this thread that links the discussion thread of your program in the Peer-to-Peer Programs forum.

Please note that we’ll move or delete any future advertisement posts that are outside the Peer-to-Peer Programs forum, as well as any posts in this topic that are not brief announcements of new opportunities. In particular, this topic should not be used to discuss specific programs; those discussions should occur in topics in the Peer-to-Peer Programs forum.

Your post in this thread should have what you're sharing (class, session, tutoring, handout, math or coding game/other program) and a link to the thread in the Peer-to-Peer Programs forum, which should have more information (like where to find what you're sharing).
157 replies
jwelsh
Mar 15, 2021
cw357
Dec 11, 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 Stop looking for the "right" training
v_Enhance   50
N Oct 16, 2017 by blawho12
Source: Contest advice
EDIT 2019-02-01: https://blog.evanchen.cc/2019/01/31/math-contest-platitudes-v3/ is the updated version of this.

EDIT 2021-06-09: see also https://web.evanchen.cc/faq-contest.html.

Original 2013 post
50 replies
v_Enhance
Feb 15, 2013
blawho12
Oct 16, 2017
2-var inequality
sqing   0
3 minutes ago
Source: Own
Let $ a,b>0 , \frac {a+1} {a^2+ab+1}+ \frac {b+1} {b^2+ab+1} \leq 1  . $ Prove that
$$ a+b\geq 1+\sqrt 3$$Let $ a,b \geq 0, \frac {a+1} {a^2+ab+1}+ \frac {b+1} {b^2+ab+1} \geq \frac {4} {3}   . $ Prove that
$$ a+b\leq \frac {3+\sqrt{17}} {2}$$Let $ a,b \geq 0, \frac {a} {a^2+ab+1}+ \frac {b} {b^2+ab+1} \geq \frac {2} {5}  . $ Prove that
$$ a+b\leq \frac {5-\sqrt{17}} {2}$$
0 replies
sqing
3 minutes ago
0 replies
Chinese chess!
EthanWYX2009   0
8 minutes ago
Source: 2024 February 谜之竞赛-5
The Cannon is a chess piece. A move consists of the following: if the Cannon and two other pieces \( A \) and \( B \) lie consecutively on a line parallel to the edge of the board, then the Cannon can jump over \( A \) to capture \( B \), landing on \( B \)'s original position.

Determine the smallest positive integer \( N \) such that for any integers \( m, n \geq 2024 \), no matter where the Cannon is initially placed on an \( m \times n \) chessboard (with all other positions occupied by pieces), it is guaranteed that after a finite number of moves, at most \( N \) pieces will remain on the board.

Created by Yuhang Li, Chengdu Shude High School and Kaiyu Li, Renmin University Affiliated High School
0 replies
EthanWYX2009
8 minutes ago
0 replies
Power Of Factorials
Kassuno   187
N 15 minutes ago by megahertz13
Source: IMO 2019 Problem 4
Find all pairs $(k,n)$ of positive integers such that \[ k!=(2^n-1)(2^n-2)(2^n-4)\cdots(2^n-2^{n-1}). \]Proposed by Gabriel Chicas Reyes, El Salvador
187 replies
Kassuno
Jul 17, 2019
megahertz13
15 minutes ago
Elegant Geometry
EthanWYX2009   1
N 19 minutes ago by DottedCaculator
Source: 2024 May 谜之竞赛-4
In the triangle \(ABC\), let \(I\) be the incenter. Denote \(X\) as the intersection of \(BC\) and the perpendicular bisector of \(AI\), \(Y\) as the intersection of \(CA\) and the perpendicular bisector of \(BI\), and \(Z\) as the intersection of \(AB\) and the perpendicular bisector of \(CI\).

Prove that the circumcircles of \(\triangle AIX\), \(\triangle BIY\), and \(\triangle CIZ\) are coaxial.

Proposed by Yuan Zhang, Shijiazhuang No. 2 High School
1 reply
EthanWYX2009
Jul 23, 2025
DottedCaculator
19 minutes ago
is mathdash useful for amc 10?
hgmium   6
N 2 hours ago by Andyluo
For those who DHR or did well on the AMC 10, is mathdash even useful for prepping amc? I've been doing some problems here and there and got my combinatorics rating to 1815 (emerald), but my skill with solving combinatorics problems certainly isn't at that point where I can solve final fives in under 10 minutes. Is grinding mathdash useful, or should I spend my time on something else where I can improve faster?
6 replies
hgmium
3 hours ago
Andyluo
2 hours ago
AMC training
BAM10   1
N 2 hours ago by Andyluo
At what point do past AMC 8/10/12 tests become unrealistic in terms of difficulty to the actual competition. Is there a certain year that tests just got a lot harder? Are there some tests that are way too easy then ones after that are still realistic? etc. thx :D :surf:
1 reply
BAM10
3 hours ago
Andyluo
2 hours ago
NSF Nats 2025
Vkmsd   17
N 2 hours ago by Vkmsd
Is anyone going to North South Foundation's national finals this year?

(For those who don't understand NSF is like an Indian organization that runs contests to raise funds for scholarships in India.)
17 replies
Vkmsd
Jul 16, 2025
Vkmsd
2 hours ago
Mewing streak = 99999999
deduck   32
N 4 hours ago by Mathandski
Source: 2025 AIME II P2
Find the sum of all positive integers $n$ such that $n+2$ divides the product $3(n+3)(n^2+9)$.
32 replies
deduck
Feb 13, 2025
Mathandski
4 hours ago
T3 College AIME Scores?
Aops154   16
N 4 hours ago by BAM10
For someone who has a CS spike not a math spike, what is a "respectable/impressive" AIME score in the eyes of MIT, Harvard, and Princeton college AOs?

What about for someone who only does math, what's a preferred AIME score for these top colleges?
16 replies
Aops154
Feb 8, 2025
BAM10
4 hours ago
Goals for 2025-2026
Airbus320-214   415
N 5 hours ago by Tetra_scheme
Please write down your goal/goals for competitions here for 2025-2026.
415 replies
Airbus320-214
May 11, 2025
Tetra_scheme
5 hours ago
aime I 2006 #6
hgmium   2
N 5 hours ago by hgmium
Source: https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/2006_AIME_I_Problems/Problem_6
Can anyone here explain solution #1 to me? I'm not entirely sure how they got to 45*72*111/999 = 360 (ai didn't help much :/). Thanks!
2 replies
hgmium
5 hours ago
hgmium
5 hours ago
Research Advice?
AdrienMarieLegendre   9
N 5 hours ago by APrussianBadger
Does anyone have any advice on reading research papers? I wanna go through some so I could potentially start a project later this yr, but I don't know how it'd be best to read papers (for reference, I wanna do quantum computing). Should I just go through the abstract and introduction and then read the results without reading much of the middle? What should I do about advanced terminology for which I don't have enough theory to understand? Also, to anyone who's done a project, is it necessary to work on it with a professor during the summer or is it possible to contact someone during the school year too?

note: sorry if this is kinda off topic for this forum
9 replies
AdrienMarieLegendre
Jul 21, 2025
APrussianBadger
5 hours ago
AMC 10 a vs AMC10 b
mymelody1234   16
N 5 hours ago by Inaaya
Does anyone know the difference between AMC10 a and b? Is there a specific difference as to why they created 2 tests?
16 replies
mymelody1234
Thursday at 6:52 PM
Inaaya
5 hours ago
2025 AMC 8 Problem 11
Countmath1   22
N 6 hours ago by Amazingatmath.com
A tetromino consists of four squares connected along their edges. There are five possible tetromino shapes, I, O, L, T, S, shown below, which can be rotated or flipped over. Three tetrominos are used to completely cover a $3\times 4$ rectangle. At least one of the titles is an S tile. What are the other two tiles?
IMAGE
$\textbf{(A) } \text{I and L}   \qquad\textbf{(B) }\text{I and T} \qquad\textbf{(C) }\text{L and L}\qquad\textbf{(D) }\text{L and S} \qquad\textbf{(E) }\text{O and T}$
22 replies
Countmath1
Jan 30, 2025
Amazingatmath.com
6 hours ago
Divisibility Problem
hidummies   2
N Jun 26, 2025 by hidummies
Consider $f(x) = \lfloor \frac{x}{2} \rfloor + \lfloor \frac{x}{3} \rfloor + \lfloor \frac{x}{4} \rfloor  + \lfloor  \frac{x}{5} \rfloor + \cdots$

I am not sure if the following statement is true:

For any integer $k$, there exists some integer $x\ge 2$ such that $k | f(x).$

Please share your insights or references. Thx!

2 replies
hidummies
Jun 26, 2025
hidummies
Jun 26, 2025
Divisibility Problem
G H J
G H BBookmark kLocked kLocked NReply
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hidummies
8 posts
#1
Y by
Consider $f(x) = \lfloor \frac{x}{2} \rfloor + \lfloor \frac{x}{3} \rfloor + \lfloor \frac{x}{4} \rfloor  + \lfloor  \frac{x}{5} \rfloor + \cdots$

I am not sure if the following statement is true:

For any integer $k$, there exists some integer $x\ge 2$ such that $k | f(x).$

Please share your insights or references. Thx!
Z K Y
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ajovanovic
5 posts
#2 • 1 Y
Y by hidummies
$f(n)$ is just $[\sum_{i=1}^{n}\sigma_0(i)]-n=\sum_{i=1}^{n}[\sigma_0(i)-1]$. By CRT, there must exist consecutive integers $n_1,n_2,...,n_k$ that are divisible by $p_1^{k-1},p_2^{k-1},...,p_k^{k-1}$ respectively, where $p_k$ is the $k$th prime. Consequently, each $\sigma_0(n_i)$ is divisible by $k$, and each $\sigma_0(n_i)-1$ is $-1$ mod $k$. Therefore, the $f(n_i)=\sum_{i=1}^{n}\sigma_0(i)-1$, reduced mod $k$, span the set {$0,1,...,k-1$}, so (exactly) one $f(n_i)$ is divisible by $k$.

Note: The CRT guarantees infinitely such sets of $n_i$, so in fact there are infinitely many $n$ satisfying your condition.
Z K Y
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hidummies
8 posts
#4
Y by
ajovanovic wrote:
$f(n)$ is just $[\sum_{i=1}^{n}\sigma_0(i)]-n=\sum_{i=1}^{n}[\sigma_0(i)-1]$. By CRT, there must exist consecutive integers $n_1,n_2,...,n_k$ that are divisible by $p_1^{k-1},p_2^{k-1},...,p_k^{k-1}$ respectively, where $p_k$ is the $k$th prime. Consequently, each $\sigma_0(n_i)$ is divisible by $k$, and each $\sigma_0(n_i)-1$ is $-1$ mod $k$. Therefore, the $f(n_i)=\sum_{i=1}^{n}\sigma_0(i)-1$, reduced mod $k$, span the set {$0,1,...,k-1$}, so (exactly) one $f(n_i)$ is divisible by $k$.

Note: The CRT guarantees infinitely such sets of $n_i$, so in fact there are infinitely many $n$ satisfying your condition.

Yeah makes sense. I didn't realise we can span that set by fixing a remainder. Good technique! T^T Many thanks!

P.S. After a second thought, I realised that each $n_i$ should not only be a multiple of $p_i^{k-1}$, but actually take the form of $a_i \cdot p_i^{k-1}$, where $gcd(a_i, p_i)=1$. This is something to fix - by specifying the remainder w.r.t $p_i^{k}$. But CRT cannot apply directly. I'm still working on this. What do you think?
This post has been edited 3 times. Last edited by hidummies, Jun 30, 2025, 7:31 PM
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