This year, 10 talented Diamond Bar High School students qualified for the prestigious American Invitational Mathematics Exam (AIME), which was held on Feb. 1. Those who qualified included freshman Russell Kuo, sophomores Jesse Hu, Brian Huang, Kevin Kim, Nathan Tien, Jay Tsuei, Eric Zhang, and seniors Bryce Chang and Jennifer Cheng.
Top scorers in the annual American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) for the two categories, grade 10 or under and grade 12 or under, are invited to take the AIME in hopes of making it to the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO), a prestigious competition that only about 250 students in the nation compete in every year. These competitions offer students an opportunity to showcase their mathematical skills to the world.
“I take pride in honing my mathematical skills every day,” Tien said. “My goal of making it to the USAMO motivates me even more.”
Unlike the qualifying AMC 10 and 12, where students were given five multiple-choice options for each problem, the AIME gives the scholars three hours to answer 15 complex free-response questions, with answer possibilities in whole numbers ranging from 0 to 999. This reduces the chance of students guessing the correct answer to accurately test students’ mathematical skills, to ensure that all of the qualifiers for USAMO are competent enough.
“This time, I think I scored around six or seven,” Tien said. “It was definitely much more difficult than the AMC and the questions required a lot more thought.”
Though the concepts tested in these competitions are difficult, the critical and out-of-the-box thinking required to solve these problems makes tests especially challenging. The pressure induced on the students is also a common limiting factor behind many people’s performances.
“The most challenging part about these math competitions is honestly the time frame,” Hu said. “75 minutes for the AMC 10 and 12 was just brutal.”
Many of the students who qualified for AIME studied problems from old tests and visited several of the concepts that the AMC quizzed in the past. Because the AMC releases all of its past tests with detailed solutions, there are many resources available to help competitors prepare. In fact, the best way to prepare for the AMC and AIME is to work through old test problems because many of the concepts that are tested are similar.
“To prepare for the AMC and AIME, I worked through many of the post-2000’s tests,” Hu said. “I tried to do every test from 2000 to 2023 chronologically to get the maximum result I could.”
Succeeding in these competitions requires much resilience and dedication. However, the substantial rewards that follow the persistence of these competitors make it incredibly gratifying.
“The skills I have learned from competition math have helped me learn new ideas more quickly,” Tien said. “It has helped me especially much in my math classes, and has also improved my critical thinking skills.”
