Clubs and Contests
Clubs
Math Club
Meets weekly at Ottoson for math games, puzzles, and challenges to allow students to have some fun solving math problems with friends. Math Club is open to students of all abilities. Invite friends to show up; no need to sign up ahead of time.
Math Team
The Math Team meets one to two times per week to explore math concepts more deeply, and prepare students to do well in math competitions. The Math Team focuses primarily on preparing students for the AMC 8 and MATHCOUNTS. It also spends some time on Continental Math League, New England Math League, and various local weekend tournaments. Math Team is led by parent volunteer Jon McIntyre, a former top math competitor.
Contests
More information is available at bit.ly/omsMathTeam.
NEML
The purpose of the Math League Contests is to provide students an enriching opportunity to participate in an academically-oriented activity and to let students gain recognition for mathematical achievement. The New England Math League happens across New England in late February, with much simpler, shorter problem descriptions than the other contests (though some are difficult), but where speed is a major factor, with only 30 minutes to finish 40 questions. Contact Ms. Fischl for more information: sfischl@arlington.k12.ma.us
MathCounts
MATHCOUNTS is a nationwide series of math competitions for middle schoolers, where each meet contains 3 rounds: one for fast problem solving, one for in-depth solving, and one for team solving. It starts with school contests in January, then regional contests in February, where each school's team of 4 students tries to qualify for the state contest in March. The top 4 students in each state form a state team and get a free trip to the national championship in early May, usually in Florida, and receive various prizes which can include college scholarships. The final round of the national championship is televised on ESPN's streaming service. Most of Math Team's preparation is based on MATHCOUNTS problems.
Continental Math League
The Continental Math League is a monthly contest with 5 meets running from early November to early March. Unlike other contests it doesn't require speed as much as thoughtful problem solving, with 30 minutes to finish 6 questions.
Acton Boxborough Math Competition
https://abmathcompetition.org/online-contest/
AMC 8
The AMC 8 (American Mathematics Competition for 8th and lower grades) is a nationwide test taken by 100,000 middle schoolers every November. It is designed to be challenging, with only 10% of students getting more than 15 of 25 multiple choice questions correct, and an average score of 9 out of 25. Its organizers, the MAA, also run the AMC 10 (for up to 10th grade) and AMC 12 (for all high schoolers), which serve as initial qualifying exams for the USA Math Team.