ka May Highlights and 2025 AoPS Online Class Information
jlacosta0
May 1, 2025
May is an exciting month! National MATHCOUNTS is the second week of May in Washington D.C. and our Founder, Richard Rusczyk will be presenting a seminar, Preparing Strong Math Students for College and Careers, on May 11th.
Are you interested in working towards MATHCOUNTS and don’t know where to start? We have you covered! If you have taken Prealgebra, then you are ready for MATHCOUNTS/AMC 8 Basics. Already aiming for State or National MATHCOUNTS and harder AMC 8 problems? Then our MATHCOUNTS/AMC 8 Advanced course is for you.
Summer camps are starting next month at the Virtual Campus in math and language arts that are 2 - to 4 - weeks in duration. Spaces are still available - don’t miss your chance to have an enriching summer experience. 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 upcoming events:
[list][*]May 9th, 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET, Casework 2: Overwhelming Evidence — A Text Adventure, a game where participants will work together to navigate the map, solve puzzles, and win! All are welcome.
[*]May 19th, 4:30pm PT/7:30pm ET, What's Next After Beast Academy?, designed for students finishing Beast Academy and ready for Prealgebra 1.
[*]May 20th, 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Mathcamp 2025 Qualifying Quiz Part 1 Math Jam, Problems 1 to 4, join the Canada/USA Mathcamp staff for this exciting Math Jam, where they discuss solutions to Problems 1 to 4 of the 2025 Mathcamp Qualifying Quiz!
[*]May 21st, 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Mathcamp 2025 Qualifying Quiz Part 2 Math Jam, Problems 5 and 6, Canada/USA Mathcamp staff will discuss solutions to Problems 5 and 6 of the 2025 Mathcamp Qualifying Quiz![/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.
Introduction to Algebra A
Sunday, May 11 - Sep 14 (1:00 - 2:30 pm ET/10:00 - 11:30 am PT)
Wednesday, May 14 - Aug 27
Friday, May 30 - Sep 26
Monday, Jun 2 - Sep 22
Sunday, Jun 15 - Oct 12
Thursday, Jun 26 - Oct 9
Tuesday, Jul 15 - Oct 28
Introduction to Counting & Probability
Thursday, May 15 - Jul 31
Sunday, Jun 1 - Aug 24
Thursday, Jun 12 - Aug 28
Wednesday, Jul 9 - Sep 24
Sunday, Jul 27 - Oct 19
Introduction to Number Theory
Friday, May 9 - Aug 1
Wednesday, May 21 - Aug 6
Monday, Jun 9 - Aug 25
Sunday, Jun 15 - Sep 14
Tuesday, Jul 15 - Sep 30
Introduction to Algebra B
Tuesday, May 6 - Aug 19
Wednesday, Jun 4 - Sep 17
Sunday, Jun 22 - Oct 19
Friday, Jul 18 - Nov 14
Introduction to Geometry
Sunday, May 11 - Nov 9
Tuesday, May 20 - Oct 28
Monday, Jun 16 - Dec 8
Friday, Jun 20 - Jan 9
Sunday, Jun 29 - Jan 11
Monday, Jul 14 - Jan 19
Paradoxes and Infinity
Mon, Tue, Wed, & Thurs, Jul 14 - Jul 16 (meets every day of the week!)
Intermediate: Grades 8-12
Intermediate Algebra
Sunday, Jun 1 - Nov 23
Tuesday, Jun 10 - Nov 18
Wednesday, Jun 25 - Dec 10
Sunday, Jul 13 - Jan 18
Thursday, Jul 24 - Jan 22
MATHCOUNTS/AMC 8 Basics
Friday, May 23 - Aug 15
Monday, Jun 2 - Aug 18
Thursday, Jun 12 - Aug 28
Sunday, Jun 22 - Sep 21
Tues & Thurs, Jul 8 - Aug 14 (meets twice a week!)
MATHCOUNTS/AMC 8 Advanced
Sunday, May 11 - Aug 10
Tuesday, May 27 - Aug 12
Wednesday, Jun 11 - Aug 27
Sunday, Jun 22 - Sep 21
Tues & Thurs, Jul 8 - Aug 14 (meets twice a week!)
AMC 10 Problem Series
Friday, May 9 - Aug 1
Sunday, Jun 1 - Aug 24
Thursday, Jun 12 - Aug 28
Tuesday, Jun 17 - Sep 2
Sunday, Jun 22 - Sep 21 (1:00 - 2:30 pm ET/10:00 - 11:30 am PT)
Monday, Jun 23 - Sep 15
Tues & Thurs, Jul 8 - Aug 14 (meets twice a week!)
AMC 10 Final Fives
Sunday, May 11 - Jun 8
Tuesday, May 27 - Jun 17
Monday, Jun 30 - Jul 21
AMC 12 Problem Series
Tuesday, May 27 - Aug 12
Thursday, Jun 12 - Aug 28
Sunday, Jun 22 - Sep 21
Wednesday, Aug 6 - Oct 22
Introduction to Programming with Python
Thursday, May 22 - Aug 7
Sunday, Jun 15 - Sep 14 (1:00 - 2:30 pm ET/10:00 - 11:30 am PT)
Tuesday, Jun 17 - Sep 2
Monday, Jun 30 - Sep 22
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][/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 , do not answer with " is a solution" only. Either you post any kind of proof or at least something unexpected (like " is the smallest solution). Someone that does not see that 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.
Non American high schooler in the equivalent of grade 12 here. Where I live, two the best undergraduates program in the country accepts students based on a common entrance exam. The first half of the exam is “screening”, with 4 options being presented per question, each of which one has to assign a True or False. This first half is about the difficulty of an average AIME, or JEE Adv paper, and it is a requirement for any candidate to achieve at least 24/40 on this half for the examiners to even consider grading the second part. The second part consists of long form questions, and I have, no joke, seen them literally rip off, verbatim, Putnam A6s. Some of the problems are generally standard textbook problems in certain undergrad courses but obviously that doesn’t translate it to being doable for high school students. I’ve effectively got to prepare for a slightly nerfed Putnam, if you will, and so I’ve been looking for resources (not just problems) for Putnam level questions. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Let denote the maximum number of -tetrominoes that can be placed on an board such that each -tetromino covers at least one cell that is not covered by any other -tetromino.
Find the smallest real number such that for all positive integers .
Hi everyone,
As we know, the pqr/uvw method is a powerful and useful tool for proving inequalities. However, transforming an expression into or can sometimes be quite complex. That's why I’ve written a program to assist with this process.
I hope you’ll find it helpful!
One can show by induction on the degree of that where
Thus, our system is equivalent to
Multiplying the first equation by and the second one by and then adding them, we get
It would therefore be enough to show that an equation of the form with a nonconstant polynomial has finitely many solutions. If this is clear, so let's assume Then the equation can be rewritten as where satisfies and
So now it is enough to show that an equation of the form has finitely many solutions, where is a nonconstant polinomial. We will prove this by induction on the degree of
Let If then where is some constant. The zero set of is either the empty set or a discrete set. If it is the empty set, then is strictly monotonic, so it has at most one zero. If it is discrete, then so is the zero set of (as a corollary of Rolle's theorem, between any two consecutive zeroes of there is at most one zero of ). On the other hand, so there is some such that for any Thus, the zero set of is contained in the interval Since the zero set of is bounded and discrete, it is finite.
Now assume the claim is true for Then has finitely many solutions by the induction hypothesis (notice that the equation is still of the form because ). With the same corollary of Rolle's theorem we conclude that has finitely many zeroes, which concludes the proof.