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| Math Olympiad & Program Solving Training Programs |
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F110 - Introductory Problem Solving
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F120 - Intermediate Problem Solving
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F130 - Introductory Problem Solving
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E120 - Honors Algebra Problem Solving
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E130 - Honors Geometry Problem Solving
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E210 - Introductory Math Competitions
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E220 - Intermediate Math Competitions
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E230 - Advanced Math Competitions
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G210 - Introductory Math Olympiad
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G220 - Intermediate Math Olympiad
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N210 - Introductory Physics Olympiad
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N230 - Advanced Physics Olympiad |
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Dear Friends of Avid Academy,
Happy New Year! Welcome to The Avid Learner, an online newsletter of Avid Academy for Gifted Youth. |
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Avid Offers Free 2010 AMC10A/12A Exams |
| Avid Academy will again host AMC 10A/12A contests free of charge to all eligible students. Students whose school offers the exam on the same date will not be eligible to take the exam at Avid Academy.
Date: Tuesday, February 9
Time: 7:30 - 8:45 PM
Location: Room 104-106, Irvine Chinese School
9 Truman, Irvine, CA 92620
The registration deadline is February 2, 2010. To register online, click on one of the following links:
Both AMC 10 and AMC 12 are 25 question, 75 minute multiple choice examinations in secondary school mathematics containing problems which can be understood and solved with pre-calculus concepts. Calculators are not allowed. Each correct answer is awarded 6 points, each unanswered question is awarded 1.5 points, and each incorrect answer receives 0 point. The perfect score is 150.
Students who score 120 or in the top 1% on AMC 10 will be invited to take the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Exam) in March. Those who excel in the AIME will advance to take the United States of America Junior Mathematics Olympiad (USAJMO) exam in April. This is a new exam created by AMC to discover young math talent. Nationally, about 230 students will be selected to take USAJMO.
Students 100 or top 5% on AMC 12 will be invited to take the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Exam) in March. Those who excel in the AIME will advance to take the United States of America Mathematics Olympiad (USAMO) exam in April. The number of USAMO qualifiers will be reduced from around 500 last year to 270 this year.
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2009 AMC 8 Results Released |
Avid Academy students continue to perform at the top of American Mathematics Contests, a competition that has challenged the mathematical minds of students for the past 25 years. In 2009's AMC 8, a contest for students in the 8th grade and younger, more than 147,000 students participated from across the nation.
Congratulations to our California State winners Benjamin Chen, Kevin Cha and Brian Wagner, each of whom answered all 25 questions correctly! In addition, 19 more Avid students received National Honors with Distinction, which recognizes students in the top 1% nationwide. Another 24 students received National Honor Roll for scoring in the top 5%.For more information about the AMC 8 and a list of these outstanding students, please visit: AMC 8 Results. |
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Orange County Math Circle Hosts Free MATHCOUNTS Event |
The Orange County Math Circle is hosting the 2010 New Year Invitational, a MATHCOUNTS scrimmage on Sunday, January 10, 2010. This free event is open to all students in 6th through 8th grade on a first-come, first-served basis. Both teams and individuals are welcome to participate.
Date: Sunday, January 10, 2010
Time: 1:00 - 5:00pm
Location: Concordia University, Irvine
Please email Alex Zivkovic at AlexZ@OCMathCircle.org to register. The OC Math Circle is a non-profit service learning organization founded and run by a group of local student volunteers. To learn more, please visit OC Math Circle. |
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2009 Siemens Competition Winners Announced |
The Siemens Competition in Math, Science, & Technology, a nationwide science research contest for high school students, was launched 11 years ago to recognize our nation's best and brightest math and science students. This year, a record setting 2,151 students participated in the competition, a 14% increase from last year's number. The national winners of the individual and team categories were announced on December 7, 2009.
Ruoyi Jiang, a senior at Ward Melville High School in New York won the individual Grand Prize and a $100,000 college scholarship in the2009 Siemens Competition. His biophysics research investigates the molecular basis of a prominent mechanism of chemotherapy drug resistance. The project addresses the questions surrounding Taxol, whose understanding can aid in the development of better chemotherapeutics for treating cancer.
Sean Carson, Dan Liu, and Kevin Chen of Texas, won the $100,000 prize in the team category for their research in advancing the infrastructure and knowledge of graph theory. The team's approach to the problem may open doors in finding reductions of bottlenecks in complex networks like the World Wide Web and transcontinental trade routes, thus creating more efficient processes.
For more information about the competition and these students' winning projects, please visit: The Siemens Foundation. |
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Making Science Fun |
It is a harsh reality that the American education system has fallen far behind modern standards among the global population, especially in math and science. One assessment shows that American 15 year olds rank 21st in science and 25th in math when compared to their peers around the world. This problem stems from a lack of science education in younger grades.
American students, as a whole, show a large disinterest in science. This issue can be quelled by introducing children to science at younger ages and making it fun. Bill Nye the Science Guy says, "Everybody loves science when he or she is young. You cannot find a kid that doesn't want to taste the kitchen floor, or that doesn't want to know how houseflies make a living." A number of TV shows are geared toward younger ages to get their scientific minds turning. MythBusters is a hit show with many high school science teachers because it is "raw science at its best."
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New UC Admission Policy may have Dramatic Effects |
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UC President Mark Yudof and the Academic Senate have recently adopted a new admission policy. Historically, the UC system has guaranteed enrollment to the top 10% students in high school classes. They also required a 3.0 minimum GPA, SAT scores, and SAT subject tests. The new policy, effective 2012, maintains the GPA requirement but has gotten rid of the guaranteed enrollment for the top 10% of high school seniors and will no longer require SAT subject test scores. This, analysts claim, will create a much larger applicant pool and significantly diminish minority and low income enrollment.
A simulated study of the new policy's impact showed that African American, Asian American, and Latino American populations will significantly diminish, while Caucasian populations increase. President Yudof and Academic Senate leaders continue to insist that UC "cannot know who will apply under the new policy, and among those who apply, who will be admitted." But only time will really tell the effects of this new policy.
For more information about the UC's new admission policy and the effects it may have, please read Civil Rights activist, Henry Der's article from the New America Media:
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Fitzsimmons Redefines Harvard Admissions |
William Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard University, is redefining admissions. The 65-year-old Dean grew up a world apart from Harvard. As the son of a gas station owner, he spent much of his time out of school working for the family business. Tired of the pipeline of students with prep school pedigrees that comprise Harvard's ranks, the Dean wants to expand the opportunity of Harvard enrollment to disadvantaged students like himself, who may have dismissed an Ivy League Education as a fairy tale dream. With 10,000 alumni volunteers at his hand, Fitzsimmons is able to interview disadvantaged students around the world.
Harvard still remains an elite institution, selecting only the best and the brightest, but under Fitzsimmons' command, that selection is no longer based on an individual's affluence. Under his reign, in the past few decades, minority acceptance at Harvard has risen dramatically along with scholarship awards. He is setting a standard for other Universities to model after.
For an in-depth look at how Fitzsimmons has changed Harvard admissions, along with his own personal story, please read Tracy Jan's article from the Boston Globe: He's Redefining Acceptance at Harvard. |
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Technology Innovation is Key to Economic Growth |
Through one of the worse economic recessions in our nation's history, many have pointed toward technological innovation as a means of pulling through. A majority of the global population feels that America's economic perils will dethrone it as a global power leaving space for China, India, or Japan to fill the spotlight. In a society increasingly reliant on technology, the most innovative will be the most successful. While many production factories are located in China, the US does not have to fall behind in the global scene as long as we continue to dream up the gadgets, said Intel's CTO Justin Rattner.
Americans' doubts regarding future leadership are largely based on something considered to be the nation's biggest liability, our fall in the quality of K-12 science and math education. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly called the "nation's report card," revealed in a report released in October that fewer than 40 percent of fourth graders and eighth graders in the United States are proficient in math. To remain innovative, this sector needs to be rapidly improved.
For more information on this issue please refer to Intel's News Release: Economic Growth in Technology Innovation and to Don Clark's Wall Street Journal article: China Needn't Surpass U.S. |
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College Admission Bias Investigated |
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The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating whether college admission offices are discriminating against female applicants to achieve gender balance in their student bodies. Female admission among universities across the United States has increased dramatically over the past 20 years. Approximately 57% of the nation's university population is female. The increase of female applicants has meant that they are rejected in higher percentages. The use of gender as part of admission decisions is prohibited at public schools and in private graduate and professional programs. But data from the National Center of Education shows that from 2003-2008, women were accepted at universities at a 2% higher rate than men.
For more information on this issue and the pending investigations, please read Zach Miner's article from the US News and World Report:
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I hope you enjoyed the information provided in this newsletter. Thank you for supporting gifted education in Southern California. If you have comments to improve our newsletters or would like to share articles, resources and ideas with our community, please email me at Dr.Li@AvidAcademy.com.
Sincerely,
James Li, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Avid Academy for Gifted Youth | |
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