Advanced math students compete in AMC-8

As the only intermediate school in Santa Ana who participated, MacArthur math scholars challenged themselves with a 24-25 question exam.

On November 3, Math Teacher Mrs.Sherry Skipper’s honors Pre-Algebra, Algebra, and Geometry  classes received the opportunity to participate in AMC-8 a national mathematics competition.  The American Mathematics Competition, by the Mathematical Association of America, has been providing exams for participating students for over 60 years.  Skipper’s honors students have been participating since 2010.  

The AMC-8 exam has 24-25 questions and takes place during the month of November.  MacArthur continues to be the only school in the Santa Ana Unified School District that participates in AMC-8.  “I decided to start AMC-8 when we started the super honors math group because I wanted the students to be able to challenge themselves.  The total cost per year is 300 dollars. AMC-8 is predominantly for private schools so I wanted to try it at public school.”  

The AMC-8 categories are separated by age and grade level.  The AMC-8 division is for middle school level competition.  AMC-8 selects the highest scoring in the middle school division.  After middle school, the AMC-10 is available for the high school level competition.  

For MacArthur’s results, in sixth grade, Edward Trejo, Julia Ariston, Luis Romero, Philana Trieu, and Seth Arevalo won bronze.  Brooke Mai Ha, Damon Le, and Joseph Ramirez won silver.  The gold winners are Robert Peña, and Angel Rios.

In seventh grade, Christian Sanchez, Grette Pham, and Tyson Ma earned bronze.  Ariane De Guzman, Brandon Dao, Daniel Morales, John Dinh, and Vivian Mai earned silver.  The gold winners are Gael Taylor, Sergio Macias, and Ben N. Le.  

In eighth grade, the bronze winners are Alex Tran, Nathan Tagaloa, Nina Le, Peter Young, and Tammy Tran.  Anderson Truong, Kaitlyn Vu, and Sarah Guzman earned silver.  The gold winners are Daniel Sevilla, Luis Jardon, and Christie Nguyen.

Seventh-grade gold winner Gael Taylor said, “In order to win an additional medal I plan to expand my knowledge in math and display more effort in the next AMC-8 exam.”  This year is Gael’s first time winning in AMC-8 after participating for his second time.  

Seventh grade bronze winner, Grettee Pham said, “From my perspective the exam was difficult, I was honestly shocked and surprised when I discovered I won a bronze medal.”  This year was the second year Grette participated in the exam and the second medal she earned.

According to Skipper, “I hope that by participating in the exam students will be able to take math knowledge and apply it to unfamiliar subjects and think outside the box.”