Math League

I know. We haven't done meet #3 or meet #4 and we're talking about the schedule for meet #5? But things happen fast. So here's the tentative schedule for meet #5. Keep in mind that I may sometimes move a practice, so check back here from time to time.

Friday 1/13 at 7:30

Wednesday 1/18 at 7:30
Thursday 1/19 at 3:30

Monday 1/23 at 3:30
Thursday 1/26 at 7:30

Tuesday 1/31 at 3:30
Friday 2/3 at 7:30

Thursday 2/9 at 7:30

You should also sign up to take the AMC-10 or AMC-12 on Tuesday 2/7. There will be problems based on last year's AMC-12 on the meet #5 exam, so some familiarity with the AMC will help you!

We will do meet #3 on Monday, December 19th at noon in room 129. I will provide pizza and cookies before the meet at 11:30. Come early and come hungry!

We have a very short time to prepare for meet #4 on January 9th, a week after we return from winter break. I will give you one packet to work on over winter break. It will be important that you do find an hour to work on that sometime over break.

We will practice twice after returning from break:

Tuesday, January 3 at 3:30
Thursday, January 5 at 7:30

Here is the practice schedule leading up to meet #3. That meet was originally schedule for Monday, December 19th, but since many Tri-Metro schools are on winter break, we will do the meet ourselves at MPA on Monday, December 19th at noon. I will provide some pizza and cookies for your nourishment!

Wednesday, November 30 at 7:30

Monday, December 5 at 3:30
Friday, December 9 at 7:30

Monday, December 12 at 3:30
Thursday, December 15 at 7:30

Here is the schedule of practices for November in preparation for our second meet:

Wednesday, November 9 at 3:30
Friday, November 11 at 7:30

Monday, November 14 at 3:30
Tuesday, November 15 at 7:30

Monday, November 21 at 7:30
Tuesday, November 22 at 3:30

Our second meet is Monday, November 28 at Holy Angels!

Given the short time between meets, it will be very important to attend as many practices as you can! If you cannot make a practice, at least stop by and pick up the practice materials so you can do something on your own.

Here is the practice schedule leading up to the first meet. These dates are all B-day mornings to avoid Latin or whatever you all take in the morning. We will meet at 7:30 in room 129 (my classroom).

Thursday, September 22
Wednesday, September 28
Wednesday, October 5
Tuesday, October 11
Monday, October 17
Tuesday, October 25
Tuesday, November 1

Please come prepared to stake your claim for which events (A - Algebra, B - Geometry, C - Trigonometry, or D - Pre-Calculus) you would like to take for our first competition. Everyone must do two events. And some of the younger team members may have to do A and B.

And if you will be doing event A, you will need to do a little studying for Modular Arithmetic. When I asked Alex if he'd ever studied modular arithmetic, he said he had, but that he always wound up in the same place. I think he made a funny, but I didn't get it until this morning.

Math League is fast approaching! Here are the meets for 2011-2012:

November  7, 2011
November 28, 2011
December 19, 2011
January 9, 2012
February 13, 2012

These are all Monday afternoons. We will have a bus to all of these meets, leaving MPA at 3:20 and returning at about 6:00.

We will start practicing in the morning pretty soon. I will post a schedule of practices soon. Once cross country is over in November, we will add some afternoon practices as well.

Start looking at the challenge topics for this season in the previous entry. Start recruiting new members, especially from the new to MPA 9th grade students.

The challenge topics for 2011-2012 were announced at the Math League coaches conference.

For event 1A, the challenge topic will be modular arithmetic. There are some excellent resources at the Art of Problem Solving wiki to help you master this topic. Take a good look at their Introduction to Modular Arithmetic article and the beginning of their Intermediate Modular Arithmetic article.

Fermat's Little Theorem may come in very handy for some problems involving finding the units digit of large exponents of prime numbers. Take a look at this gem of a theorem. Unlike Fermat's more famous theorem, he did prove this one, but don't worry about the proof unless you really want to.

For event 3B, the challenge topic will be Brahmagupta's Formula. This is very much like Heron's formula, so it will be easy to remember. But it applies only to cyclic quadrilaterals. The key is to be able to recognize when you're dealing with a cyclic quadrilateral (or can create one by drawing an extra line or two). Spend some time thinking about what kind of quadrilaterals can be cyclic and what needs to be true to make it so.

For event 5C, the challenge topic will be graph theory. You will need to know some basic terms, like the degree of a vertex in a graph (the number of edges coming from the vertex). Beyond that, it's a lot of common sense.

Please spend a little time looking over these topics and think about which challenges you think you can help us with.

There are some things you can do over the summer to prepare yourself for improved performance in Math League next year. These suggestions are all free, so it won't use up your precious lunch money!

First, there is a collection of old Math League practices online here. I usually do not use these during our practices, so spend some time doing some problems and looking at the solutions. Try various events so you can tell me what you're best at. Don't forget to work with team round problems too.

The Art of Problem Solving has some free things you can do. Alcumus is an online learning experience that customizes itself for you. It sounds pretty amazing. And I would love to have some of you try it so we could find out if it's useful. The Art of Problem Solving also has an extensive collection of AMC-12 problems. Math League problems are often based on those, so the more experience you have with those the better you will do.

So along with all the other fun things you're doing this summer, spend some time playing with math. Remember, hard math is fun math!

Please note that I have added a page listing all the practices from November through the last competition in February. Please read that and try to attend as many practices as your schedule permits.

I have also updated the schedule to include where each competition is being held. We will indeed have a bus to each competition (thanks to Mr. Peeler). The bus will typically leave very soon after school (3:20) so it will be very important to get to the north entrance right away after school.