Originally Posted by Bostonian
Looking at http://amc.maa.org/amc8/2011/stats/statestatistics/_Overall/Grade_and_Gender_Average.pdf , there is still a male edge of about 1 question (out of 25) on average. It's not huge, but it is statistically significant, and it is found every year on the AMC 8 and other standardized math tests.

I know two of the boys on the list from TX and know their families. Those boys get far more prep and pushing from their parents than their sisters do. This easily explains the 1 point difference.

Another way to see this is if you look at the grade level where girl participation almost equals the boys, the difference shrinks to its lowest number - almost 1/2 of a question.