4ofus Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Is MathCounts supposed to be challenging? Is it only for kids who are kind of "good" at math? Is the level of difficulty up to the individual club/group/teamleader? What is the target age & is it designed to be ON the level or ABOVE the level? I ask these things b/c one of my ds's is in a Mathcounts group & their first practice problem set isn't very different from what we see already in our traditional math program (MM). I don't really know what to think. Anyone btdt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 If you look through the handbook, you will see the level of difficulty increase. The beginning starts out slow to ease them into it, I'm guessing :) http://mathcounts.org/sites/default/files/u1706/14-15_MATHCOUNTS_School_Handbook_With_Answers_1.pdf AFAIK, the target is grades 6-8. Note that AoPS Prealgebra includes a lot of problems from MathCounts. (Indeed, my dd felt quite prepared for MathCounts after having been through AoPS Prealgebra.) It will get harder than MM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ofus Posted August 28, 2014 Author Share Posted August 28, 2014 The link is helpful. The homework problems are really nothing like that. We don't have a book, just leader supplied materials. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Mathcounts problems range from fairly easy to very difficult even for the best students. As a Mathcounts coach I try not to intimidate anyone by starting too hard while I get a feel for the kids I'm working with. An average sixth grader should be able to do some of the problems and if they don't get intimidated by seeing harder problems, then Mathcounts may be an inspiration to rise to the challenge of learning harder math. Mathcounts is targeted at 6-8th only. The harder problems are VERY challenging. How an individual club is run is very dependent on the leader. Mathcounts provides club leaders with a whole range of fun games to easy and hard problems. If you want to see the level of a Mathcounts test the last year's test is on the website. However, don't make the mistake of judging the test by just the first page - the problems get harder as you go along. Top students in each chapter make it to the state competition and the top four in each state go to nationals. I've taken students to state the past several years and would be glad to answer Mathcounts specific questions as well as how to prepare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ofus Posted August 28, 2014 Author Share Posted August 28, 2014 Julie,I was kind of thinking, based on what I see tonight, that she is going to build lessons based on "where" the group is at. DS says there's another assignment besides the word problems that I've seen, so I'll get a better sense tonight :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted August 29, 2014 Share Posted August 29, 2014 If he's interested in doing more challenging mathcounts stuff, he can look at some old tests and look at the mathcount minis online (free). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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