Hi everyone,
I just have a question. I live in PA and I sadly didn't make it to nationals this year. Is PA a competitive state? I'm new into mathcounts and not sure

I have been doing one set weekly, so I think I will do ok. How about you?

Edit:41 votes!
Edit: Thank you for 80 votes on Christmas Eve! :pilot:
Edit: 100 VOTES! :what?:
Edit: 150 VOTES! :coolspeak:
Edit: 200 VOTES!! :o
Edit: 275 VoTeS!!! :blush:
Edit: 300 VOtES!! :ninja:

I know this post has been made before, but I personally can't find it. I qualified for mathcounts through wildcard in PA, and I can't figure out how to do those last handful of states sprint problems that seem to be one trick ponies(2024 P28 and P29 are examples) They seem very prevalent recently. Does anyone have advice on how to figure out problems like these in the moment?

As Mathcounts States has not started yet, I would like to ask a quick question. What would be the target goal to get to nationals in the state of Pennslyvania. I mock 34-38, so I want to know would that be enough to get me to CDR?

Does your TI-84 battery drain in a few days sitting unplugged, turned off?

I have to keep plugging in mine to recharge it, even when I’m not using it for a few days.

Don’t want to show up at Mathcounts with a dead battery.

When is your MATHCOUNTS Chapter?

Mine was today

So I wanted to use this space to talk about my prep for the AMC series or any math competition in general. After reading this, I wanna know if I am preparing the wrong way or if there's anything else I should be doing.10th grade rn, and this was my 3rd year doing math competitions (so started in 7th).


First, time stamps. In 7th and 8th grade I prepared for MATHCOUNTS and AMC 10 and I made AIME in 8th. I'd say I put ~7 to 10 hours a week into this. I took two classes a week for MATHCOUNTS and did Momentum Learning AlphaStar and even AoPS classes for AMC 10 prep. Outside of this, I did mock tests and read some intro books. I scored a 2 on AIME in 8th, so now I got a grasp of what it was like.

In 9th grade, I managed to put 10-15 hours a week towards math compettion. Like all AoPSers I was driven to make USAJMO, so I continued doing mock tests and did AlphaStars AIME intermediate course. I did Volume 2, but had no idea about the AoPS intermediate books. Got a 6 on AIME.

This year, seeing that it was my last, I doubled the amount of time towards math competition prep. I did 25-30 hrs of math prep and did the usual mock tests. I found out about intermediate series AoPS and did that. I also did MathWOOT classes. But, I got a 7 on AIME, and I was sad for 2-3 days.

So my only shot left now is USAMO. The problem is I feel like I have done everything I could considering that i've started late. But my scores have minimally improved from year to year. My AMC 10 scores were 99, 108, 105 in 8th 9th 10th (didn't take in 7th, and these are like average of A and B tests).

I'd reallly appreciate if others could relate or if I am truly missing out on something. I even used to keep a notebook of each silly mistake, but I stopped (maybe I should start doing that again). Also a note, the 'mock tests' include not just AMC series but also any college comp preps such as HMMT or CMIMC.

does anybody know when all chapter competitions will be over so chapter can be discussed?

If you get 1st on cdr for state, would you still be able to go to nationals if you didn't get top 4, but only top 16

Does anyone remember the TX MATHCOUNTS cdr cutoff last year?