By Victor Chen, bostonese.com
Acton, Mass., March 11, 2015, — The RJ Grey team won the state championship over the past weekend in MathCounts. The four students were congratulated by teachers and parents for their hard work to
(L to R}Maxwell Wang, Allen Wang, Ari Xuan, Richard Huang and coach Mr Stameris of Team RJ Grey receive award at MathCounts state competition (provided to bostonese.com).
“We were very excited for the kids. They have prepared so hard. It’s nice to see their hard work paying off,” said a parent of RJ Grey Middle School. The short video below shows the award ceremony.
In individual competition, Jeffery Chang, Richard Huang, Max Wang and Ari Xuan from Acton and Lexington made to the top 10.
The 2015 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Competition will be held at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, 39 Dalton Street, Boston, MA 02199 from May 7 to 10. The 224 final Mathletes from 50 U.S. states, U.S. territories, State Department schools and Department of Defense schools and their coaches will be treated to a National Competition experience like no other.
The four students who will represent Massachusetts in the MathCounts National Competition include Richard Huang of Acton and Jeffery Zhang of Lexington.
More details about MathCounts National Competition can be found at: www.mathcounts.org/national-competition. The following is some helpful info about MathCounts provided by the RJ Grey team.
How to prepare for MathCounts
1. Find materials. Work on your own. Play “For the Win”
2. The best part is when you cannot do something!! Stop, learn, figure it out, try similar problems & then moveon. Never give up!!
3. Use the MathCounts Toolbox. Go over each concept one at a time. Check off what you know & move on to the next concept.
4. Stay on one topic at a time (i.e. Geometry). Avoid bouncing around from concept to concept.
5. Don’t get discouraged. You are not expected to be a MathCounts whiz for another year or two!!
6. Check out all of the texts & resources available. There is lots of stuff for free on line.
The best MathCounts competitors in the state learned by working by themselves, not by sitting in a classroom.
Popular MathCounts Workbooks:
1. Competition Math for Middle School, J. Batterson, © 2009 (Amazon, AGmath)
2. Old MathCounts Competitions (AOPS or MathCounts.org)
3. American Mathematics Competition, AMC8 and AMC10 materials (AOPS)
4. American High School Mathematics Examination, AHSME (AOPS)
5. Hard Math for Middle School: IMLEM Plus Edition (Amazon)
There a lots more texts & workbooks. Go to Amazon, check out the similar
books that others are buying.
Helpful Websites
1. www.mathcounts.org (main MathCounts website)
2. http://mathcounts.org/resources/video-library/mathcounts-minis (MathCounts Mini Lessons)
3. www.artofproblemsolving.com (For the Win game, resources)
4. http://mathcounts.blogspot.org/ (lots of great MathCounts problems)
5. http://danb80.com/ (gives lots of good info for finding MathCounts materials)
6. http://www.mathcounts.saab.org/mc.cgi (create MathCounts worksheets)
7. http://www.agmath.com/ (resources for MathCounts and AMC)
8. http://www.imlem.org/ (Intermediate Math League of Eastern MA competitions)