This was my 4 years of high school math. The first half of class time was going over questions in the previous night's homework. Roughly the second half was spent introducing the next lesson and assigning the next night's homework. For extra help there was office hours after school. After about a chapter or so, a test. Lather rinse repeat. The burden was on the students to know what they didn't know and ask how to solve a problem, or why their solution was different from the back of the book. We all benefited from watching the teacher solve problems at the board. But homework was never turned in or graded. OT: My high school math teacher would put a smiley face on the front of our test paper if we scored 90% or above. I lived for those smiley faces.

I'll add my own little data point to the conversation. On my MathCounts team this year, I was excited to have a bunch of new members. I got two 8th grade girls, both of whom are already taking precalculus. Wow! I'm going to have some really strong students on the team this year, I thought. (You know where this is going.) I also got a couple of 6th grade boys, both of whom have some experience with competition math. I don't think they are otherwise accelerated. I gave the students a placement test to see who gets to participate in the Team Round, and my 6th graders easily and by a large margin beat my "advanced" 8th graders. Not. even. close. One gal dropped out entirely. To her credit, the other girl is staying on, though I know she must struggle. I'm just glad she's getting the problem solving practice she needs to be successful later.

Regarding projects, I wonder if those are posters? I remember reading that what exchange students visiting the US find remarkable is the number of posters that are assigned in school. Sure enough, when I accompanied dd to her high school classroom for her PSAT, it turned out to be used for AP statistics, and sure enough, there were the student-drawn posters, all over the walls. (Some were quite creative!) But time spent creating lovely posters is time not being spent learning statistics, doing problem sets, prepping for the exam.

I've discovered that my practice countdown rounds look much nicer when I chromecast them to the TV. But I need the powerpoint versions (or similar presentation formats) of these documents, not the pdfs I already have. Does anyone know how I can locate these files?

My kids also took this in middle school and won't go on our transcript. However, if your student takes it in high school, it seems a shame to not include it. The thing is, MC/AMC8 are considered middle school competitions, but a high school student should be able to get credit for at the very least as a math elective. I think problem solving practice is very important, and your student should be taking the class that is appropriate for his experience and forget about labels about whether it's supposed to be middle school or high school.

Yes, that was my dd. She did have a strong background in python. We had spent the first few months of the school year trying to learn Java independently and pretty much doing a bad job. So we switched midstream to Mrs. Dovi and she did the rest. Dd ended up with a 5, and now I have my dd#2 taking the class too.

This is so true. Dd has a pretty good idea of her raw score from the posts on reddit. ETA: And I mean, she had this info within an hour or so of coming home.

My dd pointed out that on multiple levels, students with higher English scores are given a leg up. Not only are English scores worth twice as much as math, but math formulas are provided, while there is no commensurate reference aid for the verbal portion. I'm not sure what that aid might look like, but still.

I need to find an inexpensive payroll service for a household employee. (I had been using Intuit but they are discontinuing their service.) Who do you recommend or not recommend?

Anyone who can show a change of heart is all right in my book.

And weirdly, both People and the Washington Post have reported on the 2016 PSAT memes. Apparently it's a thing. My dd was lol.

Since we're including humor in this thread, here's The Onion's take on college rejections. "High School Student Taking Rejection From First-Choice College In Stride As If Future Not Over" "According to reports, the 18-year-old, who graduates in six weeks and no longer has any hope of leading a happy, fulfilling life, remains relaxed and even upbeat despite his failure to gain admittance to Tufts University, the school that represented his only chance of achieving success of any kind in life."

And we can use it to fuel our parties?

This is wonderful news! поздравлениÑ! (Courtesy of google translate. I don't actually know Russian.) When you get a chance, please share how the competition worked. A quick internet search, led to this site which includes some stick figure drawings, but I'm not sure if it's the same thing? (Just seeing those Cyrillic letters intimidates me.)

She thought the grammar was easy, the reading passages were doable. There were a couple of math problems that were more difficult than expected. If you and your students want to have a good laugh, then search on google with these key words: reddit psat 2016 memes. Dd had a good cathartic laugh over those posts, but warning, they are nsfw for language and sexual references.

Here's a lesson we learned today the hard way. Make sure your student knows his/her own social security number.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

I searched the web to see if anyone else has complained and labeled the type of problem solving documentation error, and I found it. It's called the Stream of Consciousness Equality, which is on a list of Common Errors in College Math. "Stream-of-consciousness equalities and implications. (My thanks to H. G. Mushenheim for identifying this type of error and suggesting a name for it.) This is an error in the intermediate steps in students' computations. It doesn't often lead to an erroneous final result at the end of that computation, but it is tremendously irritating to the mathematician who must grade the student's paper. It may also lead to a loss of partial credit, if the student makes some other error in his or her computation and the grader is then unable to decipher the student's work because of this stream-of-consciousness error. To put it simply: Some students (especially college freshmen) use the equals sign (=) as a symbol for the word "then" or the phrase "the next step is." For instance, when asked to find the third derivative of x4+7x2–5, some students will write "x4+7x2–5 = 4x3+14x = 12x2+14 = 24x." Of course, those four expressions are not actually equal to one another. A slight variant of this error consists of connecting several different equations with equal signs, where the intermediate equals signs are intended to convey "equivalent to" --- for example, x = y – 3 = x+3 = y. This is very confusing and altogether wrong, because equality is transitive --- i.e., if a=b and b=c then a=c, but x certainly is not equal to x+3. It would be better to replace that middle equals sign with some other symbol. The most obvious symbol for this purpose is ≡, which means "is equivalent to," but that symbol has the disadvantage of looking too much like an equals sign, and thus possibly leading to the same confusion. Thus, a better choice would be ↔ or ⇔, both of which mean "if and only if." Thus, I would rewrite the example above as x = y – 3 ⇔ x+3 = y. There is also a more "advanced" form of this error. Some more advanced students (e.g., college seniors) use the implication symbol (⇒) as a symbol for the phrase "the next step is." A string of statements of the form A ⇒ B ⇒ C ⇒ D should mean that A by itself implies B, and B by itself implies C, and C by itself implies D; that is the coventional interpretation given by mathematicians. But some students use such a string to mean merely that if we start from A, then the next step in our reasoning is B (using not only A but other information as well) and then the next step is C (perhaps using both A and B), etc. Actually, there is a symbol for "the next step is." It looks like this: [image: symbol for leads to] It is also called "leads to," and in the LaTeX formatting language it is given by the code \leadsto. However, I haven't seen it used very often."

I agree. We need to own our weirdness. This is actually what I say to people I haven't seen in a while. "Okay, so my weird thing is I homeschool my kids!"

I've been homeschooling 11 years now, and I've never received a negative comments, either from friends or family. I think it's in my corner of the world, there are so many weirdos and nerds, that we don't even register a blip on people's consciousness. I will admit to having a very savvy MIL. Instead of quizzing my kids directly, she played Monopoly with them. Fortunately, they were well-versed in mental math (Thanks, Singapore!) and could make change with aplomb. That satisfied her.

Green engineering pads of paper are a nice compromise. The gridlines are printed on the back of the paper, so they are more subtle and easy to ignore if you don't need them. But they are a life saver when graphing. My dd doesn't have dysgraphia, so there isn't the sensitivity, but we've always fallen into the habit of my transcribing the AoPS problems as she attempts to solve them. (She solves the exercises herself.) It allows me to model good documentation of problem-solving (lining up the equals signs, no sloppy equations that run into one another and morph into non-equations).

What page?

Also if you open your own test center, you can register your own children for free. They make it easier and better every year. This year, they allow you to restrict the registration to only certain grades. This is nice for us, because my kids are older, they aren't keen to take the test with kids in kindergarten.

I have not heard that they are required to do this, in fact, I've heard the opposite, but I don't even know how I would confirm it either way.

Wow, that is rude. You know, you don't actually need to tell them you are homeschooled. I just say that we live in the district but don't attend their high school. You say your student is studying independently using an accredited class, and does not need accommodations. Also mention that you are willing to pay any registration and proctoring costs. I usually put all that into an email. I never call. Public schools, private schools, after school testing centers. I didn't bother with the College Board list, I just started emailing AP teachers at local schools. Bleah, I hate it when people are rude. I have a hard time shaking it off.