Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Correlations between AMC8 and AMC10?

I understand the MAA's position regarding higher scores on AMC10 versus AMC12 because AMC12 is much harder. It is my understanding that the two tests share 12 questions while the remaining 13 questions are easier (than the shared 12 questions) on AMC10 and harder (than the shared 12 questions) on AMC12.


Your different critieria for different grades on the same AMC8 test didn't make any sense to me until I realized that you were likely using grade as a proxy for curriculum. In our school district, an average 8th grader would be taking Algebra I whereas a GT 7th grader would also be taking Algebra I. Your reasoning didn't apply to DS because although he is a 5th grader, he has been accelerated a couple of times by the school district and is currently taking Algebra I.

DS is not a likely candidate to qualify for AIME at this point since he would have to score in the top 2.5%. However, based on the prior year's AMC10 that he took, DS has an even chance of scoring high enough to qualify for the achievement certificate for 8th graders and below, which looks like about 80 percentile or even a little lower on an easier test. 90 out of 150 is not impossible to get with just Algebra I when you also get 1.5 points out of 6 points for leaving a question blank. In fact, answering 12 correctly, leaving 12 blank and missing 1 will yield a score of 90 out of 150.

Yeah - DS took an old AMC10 and wants to take the next scheduled AMC10 in February.

That clinches it. If a kid has a legitimate shot at a recognition level, and they're willing to try, then I think they just have to go for it.

The small number of test-takers in grades 8 and below do the best on the AMC 10, according to data from
http://amc-reg.maa.org/reports/generalreports.aspx , showing the power of self-selection:

Grade Average 10 A 2013
Location: United States

avg_score,grade,#students
77.2,06,795
78.9,07,1730
79.3,08,3332
69.5,09,23236
71.6,10,26286
68.4,unknown,1337
71.4,all,56717

The data for "06" is actually for grades 6 and below.

Ultimately, as a parent, you are the best person to decide. Your DS has done a practice contest, so he should be aware of how hard it's going to be. If he really want to do it and you don't think he'll be discouraged by the difficulty, I'd let him try it. When I make recommendations to parents, I do consider the grade of the student's math class as opposed to their overall grade level, but we have very few accelerated students in our district.

By the way, the MAA has started to post AMC 8 results. Only the distribution report and a list of students who've received perfect scores is available so far. They update nightly, so we should start seeing Achievement Role recipients soon. I often see some of our students there before I see the score report for all the students.

Is this based on a percentile, or does it always start at 15/25?

The Teacher's Manual says 15 and above (which is approximately the top 40%). The results are pretty consistent year to year, so they go by the score cutoff rather than percentages.

In what sense do you mean "top 40%"?

I really don't know what the MAA means by top 40%; that's the percentage given by them in the Achievement Role description.
http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/about-amc/faq
Looking at the stats, it looks like 12% of students grade six and below make the achievement role.

I see. It says, "AMC 8 Achievement Roll Certificate — given to all students in 6th grade and below who score in (approximately) the top 40%. 15 points or more." Since much less than 40% of contestants (in any grade) get those scores, I suppose they must mean that the (length of the) interval [15,25] is 40% of the (length of the) interval [0,25].