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Competition Series Information
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FAQsReturn to the MATHCOUNTS website to access free online resources and find information on other MATHCOUNTS programs.
MATHCOUNTS WebsitePast Events
AoPS Contest Platform
The Art of Problem Solving (AoPS) is hosting MATHCOUNTS practice competitions and the 2022 MATHCOUNTS Chapter Competition on our virtual contest platform.
The AoPS platform is an easy-to-use interface students can use on their web browser at home.
We welcome you to try out the platform before the event on the MATHCOUNTS Week 2020 page.
If you have any questions about the platform, please contact us at info+contests@artofproblemsolving.com.
FAQs
General
Schools and Non-School Competitors (NSCs) must first register on the MATHCOUNTS Competition Website.
MATHCOUNTS Practice Competition 1 will be available to students on November 15, 2021. MATHCOUNTS Practice Competition 2 will be available to students on December 15, 2021. The MATHCOUNTS Chapter Competition will be held February 17, 2022. You can find a full list of events happening on the AoPS Contest Platform on our MATHCOUNTS Competition page.
AoPS is hosting these competitions online in 2021-2022 as a courtesy to our community and friends at MATHCOUNTS. AoPS staff are not involved in the development of content for any of these competitions. All official competitions will be received by AoPS Staff shortly before the competition (at most 10 days before the competition start date) and securely handled by only essential contest administration staff and not made available to any other AoPS staff, particularly those who may be in contact with students or coaches.
The AoPS Contest Platform supports recent versions of the main modern web browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Microsoft Edge) and operating systems (Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Chrome OS, and Android). The Contest Platform can be used on desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones with a supported browser and OS; desktops and laptops will provide the optimal experience. We highly recommend each official competitor plan to participate in both of the Online Practice Competitions to verify that their device, browser, and Internet connection are sufficient for the Contest Platform. If you have technical difficulties taking the practice contest, please contact us at info+contests@artofproblemsolving.com and mention the "MATHCOUNTS Practice Competition" in your email.
Please reach out to us at info+contests@artofproblemsolving.com and mention "MATHCOUNTS on the AoPS Contest Platform" in your email. For questions related to the MATHCOUNTS Competition Series registration or program in general, please contact info@mathcounts.org.
For Coaches
You should receive an email from AoPS with a link to join the AoPS Contest Portal within 48-72 hours of registration on the MATHCOUNTS website. If it has been longer than 72 hours since you registered, and you have not received an email with an invitation link to join, please reach out to us at info+contests@artofproblemsolving.com and mention the "MATHCOUNTS Coach Invitation" in your email.
You can find more information about setting up your MATHCOUNTS coach account on the AoPS Contest Platform and accessing the MATHCOUNTS Competitions in this document.
In your Coach Portal, you can view the list of all students who have joined your school. There, you can remove students from your school, designate official competitors, build competition student teams, and see students' scores on competitions. If you wish to cancel or otherwise change your school's registration, please contact MATHCOUNTS at info@mathcounts.org.
Once you have joined the AoPS Contest Platform, please log in to your Coach Portal. At the top of that page, you will find a unique Student Invite link. This link is unique to you; send the link to each participant so they can each connect their username to your registration. Please provide your students with that link to invite them to join your school on the AoPS Contest Platform.
If you registered (paid for) x students to participate in the MATHCOUNTS Competition Series through MATHCOUNTS, you can invite x + 50 students to participate in Online Practice Competitions. (If you registered through MATHCOUNTS the max of 12 official competitors, you can invite 62 students to take part in the Online Practice Competitions.) In January, a mandatory Competition Check-In will be open to only your official competitors. Your official competitors should use this Check-In to test their Internet connectivity and their login credentials and ensure they can view competition problems and images on their device.
Once a student has joined a coach's school, the coach can designate that student as an official competitor in their Coach Portal.
A school's official competitors must be identified by the school coach on the Coach Portal by January 31, 2022.
An optional Team Round will be available for Practice Competitions 1 and 2 and the 2022 MATHCOUNTS Chapter Competition. Coaches will be able to form teams of students from the same school through their Coach Portal. NSC students will not have access to this optional Team Round. Advancement of teams to the State Competition will not be required and will be at the discretion of State Coordinators.
To form a team of students for the optional Team Round of the Online Practice Competitions #1 and 2 and the Chapter Competition, go to the "Teams" section of your Coach Portal and click "Add Team". A window will open where you can select up to 4 students who have joined your school to form a team. To edit an existing team, click "Edit Team" next to the list of members on that team.
Online Practice Competitions #1 and 2 will be available through May 31, 2022.
Your students' results for Practice Competitions and the 2022 Chapter Competition will be available in your Coach Portal one week after each competition’s launch date. A copy of the Online Practice Competitions will be available to you at the same time.
In your Coach Portal, you will find your list of students. If you see the student's name in the Name column, they have successfully completed their registration and will be able to participate in the practice and official competitions. If "Registration Incomplete" appears in red instead of their name in the Name column, the student has not yet completed their registration for the competition, and they will not be able to participate in practice or official competitions until their registration is complete.
- If the red error message says, "Registration Incomplete (Info Form Needed)":
The student has not filled out their Student Information Form. The student must go to their Student Portal and complete the Student Information Form that they will see there. As soon as they click the "Submit Information" button at the bottom of that page, you should see their name in the Name column in your list of students, confirming that their registration is complete.
- If the red error message says "Registration Incomplete (Upgrade Needed)":
The student must upgrade their account for free before they can complete the registration form and participate in the competition. They can go to their Student Portal and click the "Upgrade Account" button that appears below the message on that page. Or, they may instead go directly to the Upgrade Account page.
- If the student is under the age of 13, they will receive a parental permission form that their parent or guardian must sign and return to AoPS following the instructions on the form. When that form has been processed, the student will receive an email notification.
- After any student successfully upgrades their account, they must also return to their Student Portal to complete the Student Information Form as described above.
- Alcumus is Art of Problem Solving's free innovative, online learning system. It includes over 13,000 problems with solutions, many of which come from major national math competitions such as MATHCOUNTS. Any registered AoPS user can play Alcumus. AoPS also offers free Teacher Tools for Alcumus that allow teachers to monitor student progress in Alcumus, which you can sign up for here. Alcumus Teacher Tools is a separate registration process, not tied to any competition registration or participation.
- The MATHCOUNTS Trainer is a free application with thousands of problems from previous School, Chapter, State, and National MATHCOUNTS competitions. Students can play while logged in to track their progress and participate in leaderboards. Students may also play as a guest (not logged in), but their progress will not be saved after they leave the website.
Coaches are asked to do the following things for official competitions to help ensure a successful MATHCOUNTS competition season:
- Encourage all of your students to take the competitions at the same time.
- Talk with students about competition integrity ahead of time. Reinforce the idea that any cheating student who progresses to the next level is taking the spot from a deserving student. Discuss what competition integrity includes, such as
- Taking the competitions in a completely honest way and following all rules;
- Not using a calculator during the Sprint Round;
- Not seeking out, accepting or giving assistance in any way; and
- Not discussing the content of the competitions with other students until 3 days after competition windows have closed.
- Identify a way to have students proctored, perhaps using one of the following ways:
- If school instruction is in-person, identify a way for students to take the competition at school under the coach’s supervision. Students will need computers to take the competition and should take Practice Competitions #1 and 2 in the same environment to test Internet connectivity.
- If school instruction is online, coaches can utilize the interactive technology they typically use in their online classroom environment so they can watch students during testing.
- Set the expectation that parents are not permitted to proctor students during the Chapter Competition. If the coach is unavailable to proctor students during the Chapter Competition, a non-related adult must serve as proctor.
Proctors are responsible for ensuring that competitors:
- Have a testing space clear of any aids other than those allowed under the competition rules (pencils, pens, erasers and blank scratch paper).
- Are continuously monitored during the entirety of the competition.
- Use a calculator only during the Target Round and that the calculator conforms to the restrictions outlined in the competition instructions.
- Do not make use of the Internet, any personal (digital or other) communication devices, notes or other reference materials including dictionaries and translation dictionaries.
- Do not (1) receive ANY help from the proctor or anyone else (including, but not limited to, hints or suggestions like, “Did you reduce all of your fractions?” or “Do you want to work through this problem again?” or “Do you want to check your work before submitting your answers?”, (2) give ANY help to anyone else or (3) copy (in written or digital form) any questions or answers from the competition.
- Follow all rules of the competition.
- If they forget their password or username to login to their AoPS account: Coaches can find their students’ usernames on their Coach Portal and can update passwords for students with “limited accounts”. If the coach does not see an “Update Password” button for a student on their Coach Portal, that student can reset their own password by clicking “Forgot username/password” and following the instructions provided when signing into their account. Coaches who change their students’ passwords should copy and paste the new password when sending to their students.
- If they lose their internet connection during the competition: The student and/or coach should send an email to info+contests@artofproblemsolving.com explaining the situation. MATHCOUNTS and AoPS will assess the situation and contact the student, coach, and proctor with next steps. MATHCOUNTS and AoPS staff will be on duty to assist with these situations.
- If they login under a Coach account and not their Student account: The coach should send an email to info+contests@artofproblemsolving.com to request the account be reset to allow the student access to the competition.
In your Coach Portal, the column for the current contest will keep track of your students' progress in that contest.
Please note that you will need to occasionally refresh your page to update the information in the progress column.
- Until the student clicks on the "Start Competition" button from inside their Student Portal, their status will remain "Not Started."
- When students click the "Start" button, they will first reach the pre-competition pages including technical instructions, honor code, and proctor information. You will see the following message if the student has reached these pages but has not started the competition.
- When the student completes their pre-competition steps and reaches the page of competition problems, their competition timer will begin. You will see the time that they started the official competition and a note that it is "Currently In Progress."
- At the end of the competition, whether the timer expires or the student chooses to end early, students will reach the post-competition pages. These include an honor code certification and a proctor certification that must be filled out. Until students have completed these post-competition steps, you will see the following message along with their competition timestamps.
- After students complete their post-competition steps, they'll see a final confirmation page congratulating them on completing the competition, and you will see the Started and Completed timestamps as mentioned above, as well as this green message indicating that the student has completed all necessary steps.
For Students
The official coach who registered your school must invite you to join their school on the AoPS Contest Platform. You can find more detailed instructions about setting up your MATHCOUNTS student account on the AoPS Contest Platform in this document.
If you do not have an existing account through AoPS, you will first create a restricted account using the link provided by your coach/parent. After creating this restricted account, you will be prompted by AoPS to upgrade your account (for free) by providing an email address and your birthdate. When upgrading your account:
- If you are 13 or older, you will confirm your email address and then proceed to a Student Information Form, which must be completed to finalize your Student account and access your Student Portal.
- If you are under the age of 13, AoPS will send a COPPA Parental Permission Form to the email address provided. This form must be signed by your parent or legal guardian and returned to AoPS via one of the methods listed on the form. Once this form is returned to AoPS and processed, your Student account will be activated, and you will be able to proceed to a Student Information Form, which must be completed to finalize your Student account and access your Student Portal.
You must have been invited by your coach and accepted the invitation to participate in any MATHCOUNTS online practice or official competitions.
Log in to your Student Portal. When a practice or official competition time window starts, a "Start" button will appear in your Student Portal. This will take you to a page where you can review the details of the competition before beginning. Once you begin, you will be presented with the problems and can type answers into entry boxes. View more details on entering answers below.
You can find more information about setting up your MATHCOUNTS student account on the AoPS Contest Platform and accessing the MATHCOUNTS Competitions in this document.
On average, students should expect to complete competitions within 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Once a student begins taking the competition (starting with agreeing to the Honor code), the student must complete the Sprint Round (40 minutes) and Target Rounds (4 rounds/6 minutes each). There are short breaks that will take place (10 minutes between the Sprint Round and first Target Round pair; 1 minute between each Target Round pair), but students must complete the Sprint and Target Rounds in one sitting. For an Online Practice Competition with a Team Round component, the Team Round can be completed at a different time. For the Chapter Competition, the Team Round must be completed within the scheduled competition timeframe.
Your results for the Practice Competitions and the Chapter Competition will be available in your Student Portal one week after each competition's launch date.
You should enter a single number in each blank. Numbers entered in a blank can be whole numbers, negative numbers, decimals, or multiples of . To type , you should write "pi". Units are already provided for you next to each blank when necessary. For example, if you want to submit , you will be given a blank like this:
and should fill it in like this:
- Before the team contest, each team should make their plan for when they'll take the contest and what they'll use to communicate. The AoPS Contest Platform only provides the contest problems, not a way for team members to speak or collaborate.
- Only the Team Leader (Team Member #1 as designated by the coach in their Coach Portal) can start the contest for the team. All team members can click "Start Contest" to view instructions, but they will not be able to proceed to taking the contest and viewing the problems until the Team Leader begins.
- Once the Team Leader begins the contest for the team, they will proceed to a 1-minute "Team Waiting Room" that all team members can join.
- At the end of the minute, all team members will automatically move to the contest and the 20-minute timer will begin.
- During the contest, all team members will be able to view the contest problems. Only the Team Leader can enter answers for the team.
- The Team Round will automatically be submitted when the 20-minute timer is done. The timer cannot be paused once it has started, and the round cannot be submitted early. Team members can stay on the contest until the timer runs out, or leave the page early. The last saved answers (entered by the Team Leader) will be automatically submitted at the contest end time.
Links to previous MATHCOUNTS online events are available in the Student Portal. Scroll down to the "Upcoming Events" calendar, where you will see earlier events listed. For previous practice competitions, click on "Start Individual Contest" to begin. Or, if you have already completed the practice contest, click "View Individual Results" to review.