AMC Summer Program

The inaugural AMC Summer Program

We wrapped up an exciting and successful AMC summer program. Thank you to all who participated!

Our AMC 10 class met daily for one hour from June 14-18, 2021, with 15 students. The AMC 12 class met daily for 80 minutes from June 21-25, 2021, with 21 students. Our students were in 5th-11th grades and hailed from several states (Minnesota, Massachusetts, California, and Kansas). They acquired familiarity with key concepts of AMC 10/12 and did example problems in class. Before the last day, they completed an instructor-designed AMC 10 or AMC 12 mock test. The camp ended with a discussion of test taking strategies, additional resources, and solutions to the mock test.

The AMC 10/12 camp was designed, organized, and taught by Linden Lee, a two-time USA Math Olympiad qualifier and the 2021 Minnesota Math Bowl Champion. Its planning benefited from consultation with Mr. MacLennan and others at the Minnesota State High School Math League. Our teaching assistants (TAs) were Felix Liu and Evan Erickson for the AMC 10 camp, and Kenneth Chen for the AMC 12 camp. The mock exams were tested and refined with the help of the TAs as well as Kevin Yang, Sasha Levinshteyn, and Alex Zhu. A big thank you to all who contributed!

We received strong course evaluations* for the inaugural AMC 10/12 summer program, based on 23 anonymous reviews. On a scale from 0-6 (6 max), our students rated the instructor as well-prepared (5.83/6), clear (5.5/6), and respectful (5.96/6). They strongly recommended the instructor (5.7/6) and the course (5.5/6) to others. Many students indicated that the instructor gave clear explanations and solutions to all problems. They found the teaching style effective because the instructor "explained how to solve each question in multiple ways rather than just one." Students noted that the combination of concept and in-class problems were particularly successful because "Struggling through the problems by myself first helped me learn much better than if a solution had been provided immediately. The instructor also provided respectful, helpful feedback when I got an incorrect answer."

We thank our students for their dedication to the program and for their enthusiastic feedback! It has been an honor working with you this summer. Best wishes to your AMC tests. Have fun with math!

*Course evaluation was adapted from the University of Minnesota's Student Rating of Teaching.

Topics covered in the AMC 10 camp

Day 1 - Algebra: Work/Time Problems and Polynomials

Day 2 - Geometry: Congruency, Similarity, and Areas

Day 3 - Number Theory: Divisors, Prime Factorizations, and Digits

Day 4 - Combinatorics: Counting and Probability

Day 5 - AMC10 Mock: Test-taking strategies; Additional resources; Solutions to the instructor-designed mock test

Topics covered in the AMC 12 camp

Day 1 - Algebra: Functional equations and sequences/recursion

Day 2 - Geometry: Triangle centers and power of a point

Day 3 - Number Theory: Modular arithmetic and GCD/LCM problems

Day 4 - Combinatorics: Combinatorial games and states

Day 5 - AMC12 Mock: Test-taking strategies; Additional resources; Solutions to the instructor-designed mock test

Sample videos involving content from the camps:

Problem 20, Mock AMC 10 — A creative way to solve a standard-looking polynomial problem.

Problem 22, 2021 AMC 12B (Also Problem 24, 2021 AMC 10B) — A nice problem relating to our combinatorial games lecture on Thursday of the AMC 12 camp.

Problem 24, Mock AMC 12 — A very challenging problem on the mock AMC 12 involving calculating the tangent of 36 degrees.

Problem 25, Mock AMC 12 — A nonlinear congruence mod 100 inspired by 2021 AIME II Problem 13.

Coming up next...

We plan to rerun the program in the near future. Contact us if you are interested in participating in a future edition of the AMC 10/12 camp.