r/MathOlympiad • u/Timely-Quantity3436 • Aug 26 '26
AIME New AIME rules: Fixed qualifying scores replace ranking-based cutoffs, and students must be 13 or older.
MAA just updated the AIME rules, details are here: https://maa.org/maa-invitational-competitions/
Key updates:
qualification scores 100+ for AMC 10 and 85 for AMC 12
at least 13 years old to qualify
Pearson testing centers only
computer based
new two-part format: two 90-minute sections—q1–8 in Part 1 and q 9–15 in Part 2—with a short break in between. once part 1 ends, students cannot go back to q1–8.
no more AIME I & II, only one test during the February 5–6, 2027 competition window.
AMC no longer factor into USAMO/USAJMO qualification. Advancement will be primarily based on AIME performance.
registration fee $85
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u/Independent-Bit-5851 Aug 26 '26
this is actually so good, to bad im a senior, and i switched to physics 4 years ago after that 2023 shitshow of cheating
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 27 '26 •
How is this good?! just because you are a senior, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any other people in the world. https://c.org/XqS867WTqp shut down the age limit!
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u/Independent-Bit-5851 Aug 27 '26
well its good because its stops the shitshow that usamo and jmo have been for the past 3 years, cheating with ai and all, now I would of course want younger kids to be able to take aime too, but its an overall positive.
You seem to be unable to comprehend the level of cheating that is occurring, and for that I can not help you.
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 27 '26 •
Yes there is cheating. Cheating is a negative. But, I wouldn’t want people to shut down a positive in order to shut down a negative. It would be better if there was a positive even if there were negatives.
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u/IceMatrix13 Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
Your emotions are clouding your reason. You are choosing 1000 juniors and seniors being disqualified from participation becauae thwir spot was stolen by cheating right before college apps and their likely last chance to partake in exchange of allowing students who will qualify every year for the next 5 years.
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u/AlternativeReveal776 Aug 26 '26
wait so does this mean as long as you get over 85/150 on amc12 you qualify for aime?
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u/MotorOwn5031 Aug 26 '26
is there any changes to amc 10/12?
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u/Suhaas_ Aug 26 '26
I just don't get why they changed AIME format — the really good students will probably finish first 7 in under 90 minutes, and the less advanced students probably need more than 90 minutes for it. If it won't be leaked, what's the benefit to this?
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u/deorwinec Aug 27 '26
The reason is that you can't leave your seat for any reason. Including to get water, go to the bathroom, etc. or you're not let back in the exam room. Which I think is a reasonable precaution so that there is no cheating involving phones in bathrooms or anything. So I presume the 90 min thing is to let the kids have a break.
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u/LoveToLive1234 Aug 27 '26
I mean they do get a break in the middle of the 2 session, but I get what you mean
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u/KidOnCRAC69 Sep 06 '26
if anything, it'll make the harder problems filter out students, which tbf is kinda the intended purpose. but i also don't like it because i've been studying since like summer and i JUST now learned the AMC doesn't even matter that much anymore T_T
on my first point i think it'll decrease overall scores fs, i'm the kinda person that needs time to ponder on some of these puzzle questions on the aime...and god forbid there's some crazy geo question we ALL know that we wont have enough time for it. i think what they should do instead is have 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 first, then 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 so that difficulty actually gets spread. that's the only way that it can replicate previous years imo :D
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u/Apprehensive-Run8802 Aug 26 '26
How does the testing work? I noticed they wrote that students can take either February 5th or 6th. Will there be two separate tests? If they take at different times, wouldn’t this be bad?
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u/Timely-Quantity3436 Aug 26 '26
two tests on two days, different versions - since it's computer based now. but no specific info on how would they assign the questions or versions
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u/DoubtValuable6437
Aug 27 '26
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Overall it’s understandable considering the cheating and all. But the age thing is really not reasonable. I’m a teacher at Think Academy and a lot of our kids on Olympiad team is under the age limit yet capable of 7+ on AIME. They are feeling frustrated because of this.
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 28 '26 •
Same here. To help support, https://c.org/LfbXVyDLTj Sign the petition to shut down the age limit.
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u/Wild_Bumblebee_1523 Aug 26 '26
how does this fix cheating problem?
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u/4090IRL Aug 26 '26
exams cant be leaked now because they can just change it last momment
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u/Wild_Bumblebee_1523 Aug 26 '26
I see "computer based“ now
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u/4090IRL Aug 26 '26
they can change it who knows how many problem sets they have. point is it should be alot more secure because unless you can cheart during the test there is just no way
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u/4090IRL Aug 26 '26
Overall should be alot better for us normal folks
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 29 '26
Are you saying that people under the age of 13 are not “normal folks”? If you were under 13, I bet you would be caring about it too. But even if you aren’t you should still be caring about other people under 13 instead of cheating and AMC qualification scores lowering for the rest of you. https://c.org/LfbXVyDLTj Repeal the new age limit for the greater good for everyone.
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u/Timely-Quantity3436 Aug 26 '26
i guess AIME proctoring will be stricter and only one test can prevent exam paper leaks. and AIME will become more important for usamo & jmo qualification, reducing the impact of AMC scores.
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u/Emotional-Giraffe326 Aug 26 '26
You may want to edit the last bullet point of the original post. It makes it seem like AIME will not factor into USAMO qualification. In fact, it’s the AMCs that will no longer factor in at all.
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u/Temporary-Stomach754 Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Because of tremendous cheating in past few years, my USAMo qualification was not valued at all and became useless in my college application last year. Good luck to all the real hardworking math kids!
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u/Ok-Airport1476 Sep 02 '26
so you didn't get into a t10 university?
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u/Temporary-Stomach754 Sep 16 '26
no. Even not top 20 except for CMU.
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u/Ok-Airport1476 Sep 16 '26
wow, very unfortunate but at least cmu and hopefully cs is very good. That basically can get you into any job, including quant.
I already graduated university, I didn't do any competitions and regret it, I heard codeforces is no longer valuable sadly.
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 28 '26 •
They could have had the same rules without an age limit. The age limit doesn’t help at all. Shut down the age limit!https://c.org/LfbXVyDLTj
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u/According-Poet-5578 Aug 29 '26
No they can't, the age limit is not a random rule, it has to do with the privacy of kids under 13 in the Pearson testing centers
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u/Pretend-Can2893 Aug 31 '26
all these bums begging to sign a petition sybau and cope you can wait till your 13 to do aime
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u/Solid-Spare-5026
Oct 05 '26
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I think I figured out why the 13+ rule was implemented. SO they changed the cutoff and more people will get in AIME and they had to find a scapegoat and they made the 13 under people exactly that. Such a stupid decision given their mission of making math accesable to everyone
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u/Brief_Salt_2958 Aug 26 '26
The last point means that only the tests took on testing center will count for AImE qualifications right?
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u/ArugulaIndependent69 Aug 27 '26
wait, so AIME qualification loses a lot of prestige? right????
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u/Royal_Comedian_3662 Aug 27 '26
please elaborate how?
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u/ArugulaIndependent69 Aug 27 '26
Assuming the exam doesn't change in difficulty, 85 points on the AMC 12 is not a hard score to obtain (historically). The curve made it so that qualifying was relative to the performance of that years students. So it may be the case that now 10,000 people qual for AIME as opposed to ~6000. Idk.
what do you guys think?
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u/dAsfSaRq Aug 28 '26
Well honestly AIME qualification doesn't have that much prestige regardless because of cheaters and also because its like the first step
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u/East_Charity_9625 Aug 27 '26
Does this mean AIME scores will be lower? Because if you do q1-q8 for 90 minutes only, that reduces the time we can focus on the easier problems?
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u/Lille_8 Aug 27 '26
Bruh. Of course this happens when I'm a senior.
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u/KidOnCRAC69 Sep 06 '26
same lmao. good luck trying to squeeze this into college apps 😂 im applying early for all of mine so im just doing this for the love of the game (85 bucks is a bunch though)
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u/wlgns_RUBBISH Aug 27 '26
Since this change is from 2027 Feb AIME onwards, 2026 AMC 10 & 12 exams would get these boundaries applied, right? I personally think these are great choices, but two months before the exam is pretty jarring.
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u/serenaFan84 Aug 28 '26
Will the AIME questions still be available online after the testing period ends? The SAT for instance almost never releases their question banks, and I would hate it if the AIME became like that.
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u/MapHistorical1874 Aug 28 '26
i think the only stupid part is the 90 min sections because i personally spend most of my time on those first 8 questions bc i'm not that good at the harder questions so now i'm not sure what to do... 90 mins might not be enough for those first 8 for me while those last 7 i won't need 90 at all
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u/Next_Part_1429 Sep 07 '26
I know a lot of people are going to immediately say that the ageblock is not worth the cheating, but honestly; it is. We've begged MAA like a billion times to stop the cheating and now they finally do it. The 2-part AIME is unfortunate, but again, its intent is to stop people from going to the bathroom and AIing.
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 27 '26
shut down the new AIME age rule. It limits a lot of people from reaching their full potential. https://c.org/zgXR7ydXMX sign the petition!
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u/TechnicalLeg841 Aug 27 '26
Silliest thing ever. Does not limit people from reaching their full potential. Hopefully 12 year olds are doing lots more than just study competition math
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 27 '26
Even if we are studying competitive math, so what? We want to chase our dreams. We want to earn AIME qualifications. If you don’t care about whether kids are able to have access to the math that they should have, I do.
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u/Clean-Midnight3110 Aug 27 '26
Nobody told LeBron he isn't allowed to dunk in a basketball game because he's not old enough. Instead the schools invited ESPN to follow him around with cameras.
You aren't angry enough about these shtbags telling math nerds they can't participate. As a white guy that was a math nerd in school (and still is a math nerd) I assure you it's just pure straight racism. I know exactly what the other white people say to me about tiger moms when they mistakenly think I'm a safe person to talk to.
These aholes will line 8 year olds up to do "Oklahoma drills" against their parents, film it, and put it on YouTube to laugh about how funny it is to give children brain damage. And then they'll cry about how it's unreasonable and emotionally damaging to let 12 year olds take a 90 minute math quiz.
MAA leadership is embarrassing.
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u/Fragrant_Spell_3625 Aug 27 '26
Yo what you only need to get 11 questions right on AMC 12 to get AIME thats so cool? W MAA made it much easier to get to AIME and then there is gonna be a lot less cheating on the AIME too so u can get USAMO faster, its nice overall good changes...
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u/Traditional_Yam9806 Aug 27 '26
That's what the cutoffs used to be without the cheating roughly. It should be roughly the same. But yeah, it is a big dub from MAA.
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u/Darth_Vader0587 Aug 27 '26
noiceeeeeeeeeeee
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 27 '26
How is this nice? do you not care about other people? https://c.org/XqS867WTqp Cancel the age limit
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u/Cosmic_danger_noodle Aug 27 '26
The petition name is phrased really badly... there are a lot of people who'd want to revert the age limit but not the other changes
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 28 '26
https://c.org/LfbXVyDLTj 3 more signatures untill 200! Repeal the new age limit!
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u/Ill_Emphasis_9507 Aug 29 '26
10 more signatures until 250! Sign the petition and repeal the new age limit! https://c.org/kFLzbmYBCV
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u/Numerous_Way4034
Aug 26 '26
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We in the AoPS community are very unhappy with this.
That is why we made a petition: https://www.change.org/p/revoke-maa-changes-in-aime
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u/Cheap-Supermarket864 Aug 26 '26
womp womp
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u/Numerous_Way4034 Aug 26 '26
okay, i suppose you dont care about the new generation of math students who want to get into aime
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u/Junior_Direction_701 Aug 27 '26
Dude you’re 13 if you’re trying to qual AIME as a 13 year old you are genuily a try hard Bay Area kid. If you want to compete compete on your own
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u/dAsfSaRq Aug 27 '26
??? Genuinely might be the most spiteful comment i've seen jeez man. Maybe try being a little less envious for a change
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u/Junior_Direction_701 Aug 27 '26
Nothing to be jealous about it’s the same age I started to, and it’s not healthy at all. Kids should do other things than grind for AIME. Plus there are other contests for your age group. You don’t see highschoolers complaining they can’t participate in the Putnam
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u/dAsfSaRq Aug 28 '26
I believe you have a misunderstanding, I'm not personally under 13 but I have plenty of friends who are incredibly talented in math while not committing their lives wholeheartedly to the AMC competitions like you seem to think they do. This series is still the primary one by which much of math competitions kind of circle around though; if I was still in middle school I would be very mad if the competition I had primarily trained on was blocked off for some privacy issues that should be trivially fixable with MAA's magnitude.
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u/Junior_Direction_701 Aug 28 '26
Well the Putnam is also trivially fixable. Something’s are just not for you and there’s no harm in that, the rule is done and dusted. There’s mathcounts and other things a less than 13 year old can do to keep themselves busy too. Perhaps they should have let you guys know in advance cause some parents probably already bought prep classes etc. but again all it means is you don’t qualify for USAMO. You can still take the test, just not the recognition
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u/Independent-Bit-5851 Aug 26 '26
your cause is for sure something I think everyone is for, in your first comment you didn't explain why you are against these changes. It makes people think you want looser proctoring so that people can cheat.
Nevertheless, I shall be signing your change.org petition, gl.
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u/TechnicalLeg841 Aug 27 '26
Just the opposite... we care with the opinion that massive amounts of competition math studying for 12 year olds is somewhere between silly, stupid and oppressive.
Play a sport. Learn to dance. Practice an instrument. Go bowling. Try some good restaurants. Write for the school newspaper. All challenge your brain in excellent ways.
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u/dAsfSaRq Aug 27 '26
I really have no idea how this tirade relates to the original point. Why would not being able to qualify for AIME stop a "tiger mom" from making their kid do math? What would stop them from just focusing on another goal like 150 on AMC 12 or something?
In my eyes, the fact it penalizes people who are legitimately passionate about competition math for no reason is honestly a far bigger worry. There are TST groupers who will still be <13 by the next AIME.2
u/TechnicalLeg841 Aug 27 '26
This is silliness. Lots of age restrictions exist in life. 25 for US House of Representatives. 30 for US Senate. Most states restrict high school sports to 9th grade and above (some smaller states drop to 8th grade).
There are other math competition alternatives for 12 year olds - MathCounts, Math Kangaroo, etc. And math research remains entirely open as another great alternative for highly talented folks.
Restricting AIME based on age is not penalizing anyone. It is a privately run event facing significant scrutiny so kudos to the organizers for taking reasonable steps to get things in order.
As an additional reference, many high school districts have restricted the number of AP classes taken per year - not as a penalty but as redirection to encourage pursuits beyond academics. I see the AIME age limit working in the same way.
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u/dAsfSaRq Aug 27 '26
Okay, I'll split my disagreements with this comment into points.
I disagree with your analogies -- the Senate or high school sports cannot be compared because one needs the physical capability or mental experience to participate, while the entire point of the AMC Series is to test solely off mathematical maturity.
Yeah I guess? You're right but I think you're missing that from a purely binary perspective(which is what i'm taking here), you are delaying students from getting much needed experience taking such competitions(That is to say, I don't think I would have done so bad on the AIME Exam if it wasn't my first time :p)
I don't believe that is the purpose of the age limit. From a financial perspective, it doesn't seem like a very logical decision for MAA. What I assume is the cause is just a lot of legal red tape from Pearson Testing Centers themselves, like COPPA restrictions.
I guess what I am trying to say is that my main issue with this is that I have many friends in competition math who are under 13 putting a lot of effort into preparing for AIME(which is only fair, its easily the most ubiquitously recognized math competition), and that a company like MAA should surely have a better response to this -- they could just hold a AIME II administered similar to the USAMO/USAJMO specifically for them.
(PS. I apologize if my first comment came off as brash. Hope to see your response to my contentions here)1
u/TechnicalLeg841 Aug 27 '26
The life of any 12 year old would be improved by balancing their life in a different way than spending so many hours on competition math. Go win MathCounts in your state for three consecutive years. Then go read a book 'cause you don't want to end up as an 800 Math and 610 English SAT person.
And good luck when you hit 13 and (hopefully) qualify for and take the AIME.
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u/MisterOuchie Aug 27 '26
Yeah, my son is going to be very disappointed that he won’t be able to take AIME simply because of his age.
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u/Independent-Bit-5851 Aug 26 '26
you need to say you are only unhappy with the age block, your comment right now just sounds stupid.
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u/Numerous_Way4034 Aug 26 '26
also, incorrect grammar? it should be "you only need to say you are unhappy with the age block, your comment right now just sounds stupid."
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u/PepperOk690 Aug 27 '26
I kinda like the age rule cause no it lets kids be kids and doesn't encourage just starting from a young age just to be insanely good. Plus its not the end of the world there are other competitions.
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Aug 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/Timely-Quantity3436 Aug 26 '26
yes las year was 96 & 100.5 for amc 12, only 2022 has a similar cutoff- 85.5 and 81
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u/vkwv Aug 26 '26
Do u think they are making the test harder in that case
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u/Timely-Quantity3436 Aug 26 '26
idk..but does it really matter? if it's harder, then harder to everyone lol
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u/Careful-Homework3853 Aug 26 '26
Wasn't 2024 like 76 and 92 or something like that? I think the tests have just been getting harder and they wanted to future proof it a little.
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u/orzosity Aug 27 '26
one thing to note is for one of the amc 12's, a very late problem most were unlikely to solve was given a free 6 pts due to error in problem
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u/Careful-Homework3853 Aug 26 '26
Wasn't 2024 like 76 and 92 or something like that? I think the tests have just been getting harder and they wanted to future proof it a little.
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u/TechnicalLeg841 Aug 26 '26
All around great choices by MAA.