Reported by Xingchen Song
The AYLUS Lake Washington Branch successfully hosted six sessions of the AMC8 Prep Camp in January led by instructor Xingchen Song, with assistance from Jiayi Zhu, and Kerui Xu. The regular session was 1.5 hours long, and gave the students good insight into foundational mathematics. Xingchen also spent additional time on Q&A and homework correction.
Day 1 (August 15): Students learned about the difference of squares and how to apply it to complex AMC 8 problems, and also learned different ways to solve quadratics, such as using the quadratic formula or factoring. Students also learned Vieta’s Formula for quadratics, and also learned important rules to know while solving quadratics. Finally, students also learned about Pascal’s triangle, and how it could be used in real AMC problems.
Xingchen Song: 2.5 hours
Jiayi Zhu: 1.5 hours
Kerui Xu: 1.5 hours
Day 2 (August 16): Students learned many different geometry concepts that can be applied in AMC 8, such as the Pythagorean Theorem, finding the areas of different polygons, circle basics, triangle similarity and congruence, and some common right triangles.
Xingchen Song: 2.5 hours
Jiayi Zhu: 1.5 hours
Kerui Xu: 1.5 hours
Day 3 (August 17): Students learned basic counting and probability skills needed for the AMC 8, such as combinations and permutations, stars and bars, and lattice paths. Students also did many practice problems related to these topics, with example problems and real AMC 8 problems.
Xingchen Song: 2.5 hours
Jiayi Zhu: 1.5 hours
Kerui Xu: 1.5 hours
Day 4 (August 18): Students did more problems on lattice paths, and also learned about more important topics that can be applied in the AMC 8, such as arithmetic and geometric sequences. Students also did many exercises and real AMC problems using arithmetic and geometric sequences. Finally, students also got the opportunity to play a Kahoot on what they learned at the end of the class.
Xingchen Song: 2.5 hours
Jiayi Zhu: 1.5 hours
Kerui Xu: 1.5 hours
Day 5 (August 19): On day 5, we focused on the last 10 problems of AMC 8 (the harder ones) and did many real AMC 8 practice problems together, and students had the chance to do it themselves, then were given the step by step solution. Finally, at the end of the class, students played a Kahoot to wrap everything up.
Xingchen Song: 2.5 hours
Jiayi Zhu: 1.5 hours
Kerui Xu: 1.5 hours
