The formatted video version of the video is now up on this page https://www.mathcounts.org/programs/competition-series/competition-videos I had been checking this page periodically to see when this version appeared, but I may have missed it because it didn't appear where I expected on the page, so it may have been there a while. It's grouped with the "highlight" videos instead of the "full" videos, but it looks like the full thing, minus the pre-competition speeches/announcements, plus displayed questions so the viewer can play along. .

From what I can see, both Edward Wan and Luke Robitaille have had extremely high results in various math contests at very young ages. While I'm sure they work hard, it is impossible to get these results without a very high level of natural ability. Edward Wan not making the WA team a year earlier is really due to it being a very competitive state, so that a mistake or two could cost you a place on the team.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_joke "There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Tell him to relax and enjoy the experience. Treat it as a warm up for 2017. One year can bring a lot of improvement.

This year in the live webcast, they did display the questions on some of the questions, though not necessarily long enough to read. ETA: I see what you mean with the archived versions having the questions, so that the viewer can play along (maybe hitting the pause button instead of the buzzer). That's good.

I don't know what "Prodigy" is but it sounds like the questions might be too routine to say a kid is really on the level they claim. Maybe just keep doing BA, and at the same time do Alcumus Prealgebra problems to see how he goes with a more challenging style of question.

From what I could gather, the Level 3-4 test was unusually easy this year, and also (based on percentiles I heard) there were about 3500-3600 grade 4 contestants, whereas according to the website there are 1637 "National Winners" who are given "National Rank" 1st-20th. So about 45% of the grade 4 contestants are "National Winners". Since there were 121 perfect scores (in level 4) the usual convention would be that what MK calls "National Rank 2nd" is really equal 122nd, and what MK calls "National Rank 21st" is really equal 1638th (out of 3500-3600 grade 4 contestants). It's true that 45% of grade 4 contestants being "National Winners" is an anomaly for this grade and this year, and that maybe more typical percentages are 10% or so being "National Winners", and due to selection effects, they would maybe be in the top few percent of their grade. But someone who was really in the top 20 for their entire grade in the USA would be about top 0.0005%. It's really a huge difference. I know people could say there's no problem, we knew what "National Winner/Rank" meant, or could say who cares, it's just fun for the kids and nice to get the recognition. And that's fine. But it just bothers me that someone could really misinterpret what a result like "National Rank 20th" actually means.

You can go directly to http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index#channel/espn3/ but whether you have access will depend on your internet provider (it is via internet, not cable/sat TV). If you are stopped by `sign in with "tv provider" ' then you probably don't have it. At least with the archived version you can pause it to think about a problem, though they don't always display the problem. Sometimes you just hear: "What is the .. <BUZZ> .. 641 .. Correct!", but you don't get to see what the question was. (The contestants can see the question, but viewers sometimes don't get to see it).

You don't need ESPN generally. But you do need that your internet provider gives access to ESPN3 specifically. I'm sure the archived version will be available to everyone in the last link I gave, though I don't know when it will show up. Good luck to the contestants. We're hoping one of ours will be there one day in the future (in the 224 at least).

For anyone interested, there is a webcast of the National MATHCOUNTS Countdown Round tomorrow (Mon 9 May 2016) at 10am ET which can be found here https://www.mathcounts.org/national-competition https://www.mathcounts.org/national-competition-webcast If you miss it, it will probably be archived here https://www.mathcounts.org/programs/competition-series/competition-videos It's pretty interesting to watch, though I wish they displayed the questions to the viewers better, to see what the contestants are seeing. The contestants see the whole written question appear on a screen, and an announcer starts reading it out, but sometimes they only get to read a few words before someone buzzes in with an answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Edit: ^This was for 2016. It looks like the same links are good for 2017 (Monday, May 15 at 10:00 am ET).

We've tried it. It's fine. It's an efficient way for a fast learner to move quickly through material. It's not "gifted" the same way AoPS is, in that it doesn't have the same level of challenging problems. If you don't mind spending $60 for a 3 month subscription, then I'd say just try it (then tell us how it went).

"National winners" are the top twenty different point scores (not top twenty scorers), including all the people tied for those twenty different point scores, in each grade. Because of ties, there were over 1600 "national winners" just in grade 4, which I'm guessing is almost half of the grade 4 contestants.

I wonder what percentage of contestants are "national winners" this year.

Did you get to a results page, or was it through the user login?

I've been trying for hours. No luck. When I go to http://www.mathkangaroo.org/mk/results.html and then click on "2016" under "Archived Results" it links to a page http://www.mathkangaroo.org/MathKangaroo/Results.xhtml and on that I just get an error message every time. (There are a few different variants of error message.) When I click on "User Login" it links to a page https://www.mathkangaroo.org/MathKangaroo/MKRegHome.jsp and again I get an error message every time. I tried mimicking the addresses of past year results using address http://www.mathkangaroo.org/mk/2016/2016_results_main.html but the page is just a stub with the message "Math Kangaroo 2016 Results - Coming up Soon" Where/how are you all seeing results?

I updated the OP to say what we chose to do. Right. The course material did not need to be changed. We just needed to change to a more supportive and structured format.

How about EPGY? https://giftedandtalented.com/course-detail/-/course/redbird-mathematics-advanced-edition-144 It's online, automatic, self-paced, includes instruction. I think it's solid for elementary.

After some more thought we came to a conclusion that seems so obvious in hindsight. Instead of trying to work through the AoPS books (which was not working) DS10 should take the AoPS classes. It's more expensive, e.g. $300 class versus $50 book, but if it works I can live with the cost. Another concern I had had about the classes (versus the books) was that once enrolled in the class, you are committed to the pace and schedule (and lose the flexibilty to speed up, slow down, take a break) but I think this commitment can turn into a positive. DS10 understands what would be required, and is on board with this. He took an AoPS class for AMC 8 prep and really liked it, so he knows the format and enjoys it. So I feel good about this choice for Math for DS10. (But for the rest of the subjects and the rest of our children our homeschooling plan is still a shambles. :crying: )

I saw mobymax.com but I wondered if it included a lot of questions, but not instruction (same with ixl.com).

OP here. Oh dear, I finally took a look at the time4learning lesson demos. (I should have done that earlier, obviously.) It doesn't look good to me. It really doesn't look like something we'd want to use. We'll need to keep looking. Thanks for all the curriculum suggestions.

OP here. Thanks for the curriculum suggestions. I am looking at it all. Also, I didn't sugar-coat the situation, so as to invite candid comments, and I appreciate all these comments.

OP here. Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I am looking into them. I understand the various pedagogical arguments, and I understand what the various kinds of courses are and aren't (though I'm not familiar with specific courses which is why I ask), but at this point I do want some more standard types of courses that can be done online, where a very mathy kid can easily learn this material. DS10 does various things on the internet, some worthwhile, some not. But of his own initiative he will find things like the binomial theorem, the sine rule, the power rule, and many other things, and he understands the explanations of why they are true, which is clear to me when he tells me about them. I don't want to discourage him from surfing the internet and learning random pieces of math, but he now needs to go ahead and learn these courses in full, in a more organized way, instead of finding random fragments. It's clear he's ready for all of this material in this Algebra-Geometry-Trigonometry-Calculus path as presented in typical courses. It's just not that hard. There's plenty of chance for him to do harder problem solving and formal theorems and proofs when he's older. Anyway, I noticed that Thinkwell is used by CTY (and I thought it was also used by EPGY, but I could be mistaken) so it can't be that bad. But I do want to hear about any other options.

Update: We have decided to go with the AoPS classes. Expecting a youngster to teach themselves with only the books wasn't realistic in our case. Hopefully this will be effective, and we get to stay with a strong math syllabus. Original message below. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ We have been homeschooling for two years, and really struggling to get things to work. I made a general post in this forum http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/605521-seeking-online-easy-to-use-complete-homeschooling-curriculum/ Our oldest, DS10, is quite good at math. We got some AoPS books, but his progress through them is slow and sporadic, and it's clear this approach is not working for now. He really doesn't like working out of books. He much prefers online. (Also he wants to solve every single problem which we told him was not necessary or even plausible.) Perhaps he currently lacks some of the self-directed studying skills needed to work independently using such books. So we're now looking for common and garden variety courses in the standard Algebra-Geometry-Trigonometry-Calculus sequence, preferably online/onscreen: watch a video/animated mini-lecture, take a quiz, and move on to the next topic. I know the philosophy behind "The Calculus Trap" but I'm now intentionally not heeding that advice and saying that DS10 should indeed just go ahead and learn this material from standard courses like most people do, without the epic problem solving challenges that AoPS offers. (He'll still use AoPS for "off-sequence" topics like Number Theory, Counting & Probability, and he'll still face extremely challenging problems in math contests like AMC and MathCounts.) I really know very little about the available courses of the type I'm looking for. I came across these http://www.thinkwellhomeschool.com/ which seem to fit the kind of thing I'm looking for. (They cost about $125 per course, but I can live with that.) But I want to know what alternatives there are of this type, before selecting one. I want something mathematically and pedagogically sound, still at a decent level academically aimed at good students, but just not the AoPS style. Any suggestions for courses of this type? (It needs to be entirely on computer.)

OP here. Thanks for all the comments. I'll get to the other questions, but again I do want to hear about options for "comprehensive" online curricula. I found time4learning.com but I want to hear about other options of this type. Background: I work, wife doesn't, so even though I can sometimes work at home, I am limited in my time. We did try free virtual school (K12.com) with our oldest, DS10, before switching to homeschooling. (B&M school is not a good option here for various reasons, so we've been left with homeschooling as the only remaining option.) Doing virtual school did show that DS10 was able to work through a bunch of school tasks put before him, but the material was just okay, not great, and virtual school involves a lot of wasted time for child and parent, with many unnecessary educational and non-educational tasks to deal with. It convinced us that we could do better, more efficiently, with better materials, with regular homeschooling. I still believe that's true in theory, with the right materials, even if it hasn't turned out in practice yet. For DS10(grade 4) we got Michael Clay Thompson for ELA. DS10 read some a couple of times, and thought it was fun, but my wife expected him to work alone and wasn't willing to spend any time on it, so it was abandoned. We also got various Art of Problem Solving books. DS10 has worked through some parts of them, but there is too little progress through the books for this to be viable. We also got some general science and history books (not curricula) to read, but they went barely touched. The problem seems to be that he doesn't like learning from books. He prefers online. For example, on his own initiative, he found various math websites and taught himself some trigonometry and even a bit of calculus. He wants to learn and can work mostly independently, but we need to give him more structure, and some decent materials that he likes. For DD7(grade 1) we have at times had an EPGY subscription, which includes Math and parts of ELA, and she finished up to the end of Grade 2 Math and Grade 3 ELA, so technically she's ahead, but she averaged only minutes of work per day (there's not a huge amount of material in each grade) and that's all she's done. She refused to touch the Beast Academy (AoPS Math) books we got, nor the science and history books we got. Unlike DS10, DD7 is strongly resistant to doing anything she's told, so we'll have to figure out how to get her to do what's expected (after we figure out what's expected). DD5(pre K) has not done any schoolwork yet. So there's some background. Obviously some parenting changes are needed. But I do want curriculum suggestions.

OP here. Thanks for all the comments. I'll be back later with a more detailed response.