What Is the AMC 10?

If your high school student is preparing for competition and tests such as the AMC 10, your student can benefit greatly from tutoring. Our tutors can help prepare your student for the assessment by reviewing coursework material and work with your student on practice tests.

The AMC 10, or American Mathematics Contest, is a multiple-choice examination for students in high school. The AMC 10 is a 25 question test that takes place over 75 minutes, and it promotes the development of student’s problem-solving skills.

This timed test is for students that are in 10th grade and below, while the AMC 12 is for students in grade 12 or below. Students taking the AMC 10 must be less than 17.5 years of age on the day that they take the test. The AMC 10 is designed to cover high school mathematics topics that students cover in up to grade 10. Students who do well on the AMC 10 may be invited to other math competitions leading all of the ways up to the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Preparing for the AMC 10

There are numerous ways that your student can prepare for the AMC 10. The number one way is working on practice questions. Our tutors can help your student by working through practice questions and old tests so that they are comfortable with the style of questions and how to answer them.

As a part of reviewing the material, our tutors can work with your student to develop a firmer understanding in the topics tested by the math competition. Indeed, our tutors can help your student master skills they need in their current math class while also reviewing for the AMC 10, making our tutoring sessions serve a dual purpose. While we don’t want your student’s focus split between too many topics, this can help them.

Your student does not need to know calculus, trigonometry, or advanced algebra to take the AMC 10 test. The test does not require the use of a calculator, and, in fact, they are not permitted in recent years. If your student does well on the American Mathematics Contest 10, they may be invited to take the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (the AIME), leading to potentially taking part in the International Mathematics Olympiad. Understanding the format and scoring system for the AMC 10 is paramount to doing well on the test. The test is scored so that guesses have the potential to be penalized, as unanswered questions are worth more than questions that have been answered incorrectly. Your student should have a firm grounding in topics such as number theory and arithmetic to do well on the test.

The AMC 10 is a great competition for high school students. If your student has a passion for mathematics, they might consider joining their school’s competitive math team. The benefits of competitive math groups are more than just learning more about math topics; this form of competition allows students to develop their problem-solving skills and gain an understanding of teamwork while expressing their passion. If your student is taking part in a competitive math team, they can increase their talents in math, which might lead to career opportunities down the line, from computer science to engineering. While math competitions can offer a lot of opportunities to students, some may want or need extra help when it comes down to their math competition involvement. Our tutors can help your student develop their skills in math.