Students ferociously scribble on paper filled with challenging math problems while the clock ticks down, and they increase their pace, working until the last second.

On February 7, around 40 upper school students participated in the American Math Competition (AMC), competing against each other and students from schools around the country.

The AMC consists of categories based on age and grade, with Parker students competing in the AMC 10 for underclassmen, and AMC 12 for upperclassmen. Each 25 multiple choice questions about curriculum appropriate to the grade.

Last year, under guidance from then Upper School Math Teacher and Department Co-chair Sven Carlson with the help of Upper School math chair Wendy Olt, 27 Parker students participated in the AMC for the first time. This year, the AMC was organized by Olt.

“I think it’s really exciting that we have so many strong math students,” Olt said. “I think this is a healthy way for kids who are excited about math, and who love math, to participate in something outside of the classroom.”

The AMC is the first round of a series of math competitions available to high school students, ending with the International Math Olympiad. If students complete enough problems correctly, they can move on to the next round which features a harder test and an increasingly smaller group of students that qualify.

Upper School Math teacher Ethan Levine competed in the AMC when he was in high school, qualifying for the next round of competition. “It’s creative problem solving,” Levine said. “The more you do, the better you get at it, so I kept getting a little bit better each year. ”

Within the AMC there are awards — medals, pins, and certificates — given out for how well a student or school does in the competition. Although competition is a main aspect of the AMC, there are no effects on students who do not compete well enough to make it to the next round. Olt said, “It’s kind of like a low stress situation,” Olt said. “If you don’t do well, it’s not that big of a deal.”

The low stress nature of the AMC may have correlated to the increase of participants this year. “I love math, so I signed up because it doesn’t matter if I don’t do well,” freshman and AMC 10 participant Leila Sheridan said. “There is no stress or studying, it’s just a fun way to express my love for problem solving.”

One of the purposes of the AMC is to improve problem solving skills, and it can also be helpful to widen the mindset of students to types of problems they have never seen. Olt said, “You may as well have the biggest variety of questions thrown your way, and exposure to different types of math.”

Sophomore and AMC 10 participant Caroline Conforti agreed. “I haven’t taken it before,” she said, “but I’m sure that it will help with exposing you to stuff you might see on standardized tests in the future, like the ACT or the SAT. ”

The AMC was also just math for the sake o math. “So much of the stuff we do in school we do because we have to do it,” Conforti said, “so it’s a cool experience of just a bunch of people who are passionate about math.”

Sheridan had an overall positive experience. “I thought it was really fun, but way more challenging than I thought it was going to be,” Sheridan said. “There were problems on there I had no idea how to solve, but I wasn’t stressed at all, because I knew it didn’t matter.”

AMC 12 participant Abhi Goyal agreed, calling it “just a fun math test to take!”