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MATHCOUNTS Trainer Contest
This year's MATHCOUNTS Trainer Contest is now closed. Thank you to all who participated! Winners will be announced in May via email!
Rules
Students gain points for every problem answered correctly from August 15, 2020 through 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT April 5, 2021.
- Students earn 100, 200, 300, and 400 points for correctly solving a school, chapter, state, and national level problem, respectively.
- If the same question is answered correctly multiple times, only the first correct answer during the contest will earn full points, and each of the other correct answers will earn 20% of the full points.
- There is no penalty for answering questions incorrectly. Points can only be earned, not lost.
- Students only compete for prizes with those who enrolled in the same AoPS Academy course.
- Ties will be broken based on the longest streak, with the student who had the most consecutive days earning points through the duration of the contest being ranked higher (note that this does not necessarily coincide with the student's current streak). In the event that two students also have the same longest streak, they will be tied in the rankings. For a day to count towards a student's streak, they must earn points prior to 11:59 PM GMT. With this in mind, we encourage students to set aside a consistent time each day to work on math contest problems.
Prizes
Prizes for the top 10 students in each eligible course will be awarded after the contest ends. Top scorers will be awarded Amazon gift cards in the amounts shown below.
- 1st place: $100
- 2nd place: $75
- 3rd place: $50
- 4th - 6th place: $25
- 7th - 10th place: $10
Students must be enrolled in the corresponding course at AoPS Academy on April 5, 2021, to be eligible for a prize.
Students can start to earn points on August 15, 2020, but the scores and leaderboards will not be revealed here until sometime in early October.
Have questions?
Check out the Contest FAQs!
- Do the points in MCT match the points I should have in the contest?
- The points in MCT will not necessarily match the points in the leaderboards. They are scored differently and have slightly different rules. Think about MCT as the platform that the contest is using, not the contest itself. To put it a little differently: the contest is not MCT, it is in MCT.
- Why didn’t I earn as many points as I think I should have?
- Students earn 100, 200, 300, and 400 points for correctly solving a school, chapter, state, and national level problem, respectively. These points are only awarded for the first time that a student encounters the problem, each other correct answer will earn 20% of the full points. For example, if a student correctly answered 23 state-level questions, that sometimes equals 6900 points (23x300), but that's only the case if that was the first time the student had encountered each question. The student has likely encountered several questions multiple times, so several of those only earned the student 60 points (20% of 300) rather than the full 300 points.
- Why doesn't my streak in MCT match my streak on the leaderboards?
- For a streak to count in MCT, the student needs only play each day. For a streak to count on the leaderboards, the student must earn points each day. Additionally, for a streak to count on the leaderboards, points must be earned prior to 11:59pm GMT, which is equivalent to 4pm PT / 6pm ET. Streaks in MCT are recorded in real-time at local time.
