Selected math students from Central Catholic participated in the American Mathematics Competition in the historic gym on Thursday, January 30. This annual competition, designed to cultivate the mathematical capabilities of students, is comprised of two sections, the AMC 10 and the AMC 12, and is the leading mathematics competition for high school students.

Students taking the AMC 10 and the AMC 12 have the opportunity to develop creative quantitative thinking skills, which better prepares them to succeed in the future college math classes. Additionally, mathematics drives the innovations that shape our society, and is useful in a broad range of careers, even those that are not traditionally mathematical, scientific, or technological in nature. By offering these competitions, the Mathematical Association of America aims to challenge and inspire students to become lifelong learners of mathematics.

After the competition results are compiled, in about three to four weeks, certificates will be presented to the student with the highest scores in each school, to nationally high-scoring students, and to all who participate in the competition. But the real rewards come from challenging each student with math that is new, different, and ‘outside the box’. Problems in the competition are more difficult than those encountered routinely in traditional math courses. Students are required to connect concepts in new ways and to think differently about how to approach and solve the problems. The measure of success of the competition is not the number of problems solved, but instead is the level of engagement with mathematics that arise from the intellectual challenge of the problem-solving process.

(note: excerpts of this article were taken from information provided by the Mathematical Association of America)