February 9, 2013 – Dr. Tatiana Shubin

This coming Saturday, the Metroplex Math Circle is very fortunate to have Dr. Tatiana Shubin, one of the leaders in the global math circle movement speak to our circle!  We will post more details on the topic of her talk, but no opportunity to hear Dr. Shubin speak should be missed.

In addition to being the Director of the San Jose Math Circle, Tatiana Shubin (shubin[at]math.sjsu.edu) won the All-Siberian Math Olympiad when she was in the seventh grade. Her B.S. is from Moscow State University (Russia), and her PhD is from UC Santa Barbara. She served for 6 years as the California State Director of AMC-8, then became a co-founder of the Bay Area Math Adventures (BAMA), and has been on the BAMA steering committee ever since.

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2012 AMC 8 Texas Perfect Scores

Congratulations to all of the students who earned perfect scores (25/25) on the 2012 AMC 8.  It was good to see that many of the perfect scores were earned by Texas students and that a good number of those are attendees of the Metroplex Math Circle.

First Initial	Last Name	Grade	School Name
S	AHMAD	7	HARMONY SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE	HOUSTON, TX
M	BU	8	EUDAIMONIA ACADEMY HOME SCHOOL	FRISCO, TX
K	CHANG	7	BECK JHS	KATY, TX
B	CHEN	6	RICE MS	PLANO, TX
K	FENG	7	FOWLER MIDDLE SCHOOL	PLANO, TX
E	GUO	7	HOCKADAY SCHOOL	DALLAS, TX
K	HAN	8	ST MARK’S SCHOOL OF TEXAS	DALLAS, TX
B	HO	8	RICE MS	PLANO, TX
E	LI	8	FORT SETTLEMENT MS	SUGAR LAND, TX
H	LIU	7	BECK JHS	KATY, TX
A	LIU	7	THE VILLAGE SCHOOL	HOUSTON, TX
J	SHOEMAKER	6	Holy Family Catholic School	Austin, TX
V	VALE	7	EUDAIMONIA ACADEMY HOME SCHOOL	FRISCO, TX
J	WANG	6	SCHIMELPFENIG MIDDLE	PLANO, TX
B	XU	8	FORT SETTLEMENT MS	SUGAR LAND, TX
A	YANG	8	BECKENDORFF JUNIOR HIGH	KATY, TX
E	ZHANG	6	RICE MS	PLANO, TX

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AMC 8 Preparation Handouts

On October 20th Dr. Titu Andreescu spoke to the Metroplex Math Circle at UT Dallas and shared a number of interesting problems.  The video below will give people some sense of what a math circle session can be.  We are still experimenting with our video and streaming technology so we appreciate your patience and are grateful for your tips to improve the quality of these videos which will be posted to our YouTube channel.

Please note that every Metroplex Math Circle speaker is encouraged to choose the topic and format that best suits their style and passions.  This means that every session is somewhat different and you are encouraged to read the description of each session posted here or on our FaceBook and Google+ pages when you make your decision to attend.

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October 20, 2012 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – AMC 8 Preparation

The AMC 8 is an important contest to introduce younger students (grades 8 and below) to problem solving and discrete mathematics topics.  Even very young students should begin working with these problems and participate in the AMC 8 in as many years as possible to be well prepared for the AMC 10 and 12 whose results are often requested by elite universities as part of the admissions process.

Metroplex Math Circle attendees are particularly fortunate to have Dr. Andreescu lead us through a discussion of some of his favorite AMC 8 problems.  Dr. Andreescu is the former director of the AMC and the former coach of the US International Mathematical Olympiad team whose members are ultimately chosen from the very best participants in the AMC sponsored contests.

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November 5, 2011 – Titu Andreescu – “AMC 8 Preparation”

If you are a student who has not yet passed 8th grade, please make every effort to attend next week’s math circle.  The AMC 8 contest is the first in a series of competitions eventually used to select the team for the International Mathematical Olympiad.  While few students will ever represent the US on this elite team, the scores from the AMC tests become an important component of any transcript when applying to a STEM program in an elite college.

With today’s international and competitive application environment, elite universities routinely see many 800 SAT math scores.  The more rigorous AMC test provides these schools a more meaningful measure of students who will succeed in their math or science programs.

Our students have a great advantage learning directly from Dr. Titu Andreescu.  Dr. Andreescu was the director of the AMC (you will see his name on the certificate above) and the coach of the US IMO team.  Do not miss this opportunity to improve your understanding and performance on the AMC 8 which will prepare you for the more advanced competitions to come.

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2010 AMC 8 Perfect Scores for Texas

The list of students with perfect scores on the 2010 AMC 8 has been published.  Here are the students who earned this honor in Texas, including our own Jeffrey Huang!

• Patrick Guo, Noel Grisham Middle, Austin
• Vincent Liu, Harmony School Of Advancement, Houston
• Benjamin Ofomata, Quail Valley Ms, Missouri City
• Brent Zhang, Quail Valley Ms, Missouri City
• Jeffrey Huang, Rice Ms, Plano
• Victor Fu, First Colony Ms, Sugar Land
• Kevin Chen, Fort Settlement Ms, Sugar Land
• Steven Jiang, Fort Settlement Ms, Sugar Land
• Hans Li, Fort Settlement Ms, Sugar Land
• Zachary Tu, Fort Settlement Ms, Sugar Land
• Shomik Verma, Fort Settlement Ms, Sugar Land
• Alexander Yang, Fort Settlement Ms, Sugar Land

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2010 AMC 8 Results for Texas

The detailed score break down has been published for the 2010 AMC 8.  Congratulations to all of the participants from Texas.

 

But these good results are accompanied by a distressingly low level of participation.   In Texas only 90 schools participated with slightly over 4,000 students.   This is only about one fourth the participation by students in California and one third the participation from China (not including Hong Kong).

If Texas wants to serve its children in the global, information economy, it needs to prepare and allow more of them to compete internationally.

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AMC 8 Preparation Problem #2

The 16 squares on a piece of paper are numbered as shown in the diagram.  While lying on a table, the paper is folded four times in the following sequence.

1. Fold the top half over the bottom half
2. Fold the bottom half over the top half
3. Fold the right half over the left half
4. Fold the left half over the right half

Which numbered sequence is on top after step 4?

A) 1       B)9      C)10    D)14    E)16

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AMC 8 Preparation Problem #1

Dr. Andreescu has allowed me to post some of the problems from his AMC 8 preparation sessions.  Students are welcome to give their answers in the comments section.  Even better would be to use the comments section to defend or extend your answer.

One half of the water is poured out of a full container. Then one third of the remainder is poured out. Continue this process: one fourth of the remainder for the third pouring, one fifth of the remainder for the fourth pouring, etc. After how many pourings does exactly one tenth of the original water remain?

A) 6     B) 7      C) 8    D) 9     E) 10

Students interested in more problems like this one should attend our upcoming session.   I’ll post a couple more problems to the site this week as well.

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October 30 – AMC 8 Preparation Continued!

We had excellent attendance and involvement in last week’s AMC 8 preparation session as Dr. Andreescu shared some of his favorite problems and his unique observations as the former director of the AMC.

Next week Dr. Andreescu will continue his previous lecture with more challenging problems to help prepare our students for success on the up coming contest.

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