Plain-English explainers and preparation tips for the American Mathematics Olympiad — for Grade 2–12 families.
Time questions look like measurement but behave like number theory. One angle formula, one ratio trick and one remainder rule handle clock, broken-clock and day-of-week problems. Read
SMC and SASMO are both 90-minute Singapore-family maths contests, but they reward different children: SMC has no wrong-answer penalty and feeds the SMGF finals, while SASMO deducts marks in Section A, starts you on 15 points, and feeds SIMOC and IJMO – the same ladder AMO climbs. A parent’s decision guide, plus the UK contest… Read
Students arriving from an olympiad-style training track usually keep the reasoning and lose marks elsewhere. What transfers, what needs rework, and an eight-week bridge. Read
When the papers run out, the answer is not more papers. Five variation moves turn one past-paper problem into ten fresh ones, and train transfer instead of recall. Read
Most wasted AMO preparation is not lazy, it is aimed at the wrong contest. Five tests for judging any book, app or paper before a term goes into it. Read
Average questions test one idea: an average is a shared-out total. Here are the four moves, weighted means, the see-saw shortcut and the chart traps for AMO. Read
AMO levels are named by US grade, but your child may be in Year 8, MYP 2 or Chuyi. Here is the mapping, the edge cases, and what to confirm before registering. Read
Journey questions look like arithmetic but test proportional reasoning. Here is the closing-speed idea, the average-speed trap and a three-week drill for AMO. Read
The exam days rarely clash – the preparation weeks do. Which prep transfers between maths competitions, which does not, and a go/no-go rule for a crowded term. Read
