School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
AMC @ USM
For several years, the University of Southern Mississippi has hosted high schools for the MAA's annual American Mathematics Competition. Since the beginning of our association with this national event, we have added several activities of interest:
- We start with the competition itself (of course). The AMC is a multiple choice test where students have to solve problems of increasing difficulty, which rely only on high school mathematics. You can find previous years' questions and solutions here.
- After the test, students enjoy lunch while listening to a Science Café talk. You can find a list of previous years' talks below.
- Finally, schools may opt for tours of the university campus. Facilities that have welcomed students including the university's innovation and commercialization park, known as the Garden; the School of Polymer Science; and the Department of Chemistry.
- Every year's event also includes a T-shirt design contest. You can find a list of previous designs (and the designers) below.
Over 300 students registered for the 2015 competition. Nearly 400 attended the 2016
competitions!
We generally mail invitation letters to area schools in early fall. If you are interested
in participating, but we somehow failed to contact you, please contact John%20Perry. Homeschoolers welcome: we organize all “independent” students as a separate school!
Note: You need not visit USM to participate in the American Mathematics Competition! We provide this event as a science-related field trip, but if circumstances preclude your participation in our event, you can register with the MAA directly.
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Starting from 2016, USM offers the American Mathematics Competition on both national
days. In 2018, that will be |
Resources to prepare for the competition
- You can find some practice problems provided by the MAA, along with a link to many more practice problems, at this page.
- You can find past years' exams, with solutions, at the Art of Problem Solving website. They also offer many other free resources.
- Arete Labs offers Class Match, Math Madness, and Überbowl, which are team-based competitions.
- The MAA offers its own resources to help prepare for the competition. These resources include items for purchase, but also free videos in the Curriculum Inspirations series.
Contest winners
We offer prizes to the top three students in each test, the top student from each school, and the school with the winning T-shirt design.
| Year | Test | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | T-shirt |
| 2018 | 12A |
Peter Liang (Oak Grove) (qualified for AIME) |
Andrew Lott (Homeschool) | Wallace Herrin (Pearl River Central) | Picayune Memorial |
| 12B | Andrew Lott (Homeschool) | Nicholas Gallardo (Sacred Heart) and Austin Lam (Long Beach) (tie) | |||
| 10A | Max Zhang (Oak Grove) | Autsin Lam (Long Beach) | Guled Liban (Picayune Memorial) | ||
| 10B | Gregory Li (Spanish Fort) | Isha Brahmbhatt (Ardsley, New York) | Priya Ray (Jackson Academy) | ||
| 2017 | 12A | Nicholas Gallardo (Sacred Heart) | Emily Wright (Harrison Central) | Alexis Benoit (Harrison Central) | Mendenhall |
| 12B | Emily Zhang (Madison) (qualified for AIME) | Allen Huang (Oak Grove) (qualified for AIME) | Alexis Lanier (Pearl River Central) | ||
| 10A | Gregory Li (Spanish Fort) (qualified for AIME) | Jeremy Wright (Harrison Central) | Luke Sauls (Harrison Central) | ||
| 10B | Peter Liang (Oak Grove) (qualified for AIME) | Michael Zhang (Madison) | Juwon Kim (St. Stanislaus) | ||
| 2016 | 12 | Emily Zhang (Madison) (qualified for USAMO) |
Allen Huang (Oak Grove) | Michael Zhang (Madison) | Tylertown |
| 10 | Nicholas Gallardo (Sacred Heart) | Peter Liang (Oak Grove) | William Meynardie (Biloxi High School, tie) | ||
| Emily Wright (Harrison Central, tie) | |||||
| 2015 | 12 | Coleman Sisson (Oak Grove) | Nicholas Sciortino (Oak Grove) | Samer Buti (Oak Grove) | NE Jones |
| 10 | Emily Zhang (Madison) | Michael Zhang (Madison) | Allen Huang (Oak Grove) | ||
| 2014 | 12 | Xianglong Ni (Oak Grove) (qualified for USAMO) |
Tanjiao Guo (Oak Grove) | Brandon Butler (Hancock) | NE Jones |
| 10 | Allen Huang (Oak Grove) | Matthew Gallardo (Sacred Heart) | Jackson Dale (Stringer) | ||
Previous speakers
Table includes links to speakers' webpages & abstracts from the original Science Café presentation at the USM Library.
| Year | Speaker | Title |
| 2018 | Mathematics students and faculty | What is mathematical research? |
| 2017 | Dr. Wonryull Koh (Computer Science) | Coding to learn how we encode |
| 2017 | Dr. Bernd Schröder (Mathematics) | What's Calculus Good for Anyway? |
| 2016 | Dr. Mac Alford (Biological Sciences) | Flores Man: the Hobbit People of Indonesia |
| 2016 | Dr. Song Guo (Chemistry and Biochemistry) | Nanoscience for a better future |
| 2015 | Dr. Scott Milroy (Marine Sciences) | Life on Mars |
| 2014 | Dr. David Echevarria (Psychology) | Musical Minds |
Winning T-shirt designs
| 2018 | ||
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| insπre | ||
| 2017 | ||
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I Love Math |
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| 2016 | 2015 | 2014 |
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| Smarter than the average bear (Tylertown) |
No jerks |
I saw the sine and it opened up my mind |
Photos
