Check out www.theitest.com for more details later today regarding registration and rules.
This is a brand-new forensics/debate event and one high school students will definitely enjoy.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The 2008 iTest, ads on Facebook, and the launch of the iTest Debate
Most readers of this blog know the 2008 iTest will be starting in a matter of days, and have already registered. Good luck to you - you'll need it!
After reviewing the draft copy of the exam, I believe this will be our best iTest yet. Congratulations to Mathew and his staff for a job very well done in preparing an exam that pushes the boundaries of what is possible with a math competition.
The iTest's advertising this year is entirely online and centered around Facebook. With its highly-targeted marketing program, the iTest will be able to reach out to high school students themselves instead of our educator-oriented mailings of years past. We'll see how this different approach works this year and tweak as necessary moving forward.
The iTest organization is also ready to announce it's first major expansion: The iTest Debate. This event will debut in February 2009, and more details will be made available in October of this year.
So if you haven't registered for the 2008 iTest yet, go to www.theitest.com and get it done! September 10 will be here soon. Good luck!
After reviewing the draft copy of the exam, I believe this will be our best iTest yet. Congratulations to Mathew and his staff for a job very well done in preparing an exam that pushes the boundaries of what is possible with a math competition.
The iTest's advertising this year is entirely online and centered around Facebook. With its highly-targeted marketing program, the iTest will be able to reach out to high school students themselves instead of our educator-oriented mailings of years past. We'll see how this different approach works this year and tweak as necessary moving forward.
The iTest organization is also ready to announce it's first major expansion: The iTest Debate. This event will debut in February 2009, and more details will be made available in October of this year.
So if you haven't registered for the 2008 iTest yet, go to www.theitest.com and get it done! September 10 will be here soon. Good luck!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
2008 iTest Changes
In 2008, the iTest continues to evolve. The format changes once again for the 2008 iTest, but this change may prove permanent if successful.
First, the iTest aims to be as inclusive as possible, providing opportunities for a very broad array of students to compete in a national math competition. For this reason, we are expanding the total number of problems, including more problems at the easier end of the spectrum, as well as more at the approximate level of the AMC 10 and AMC 12 exams.
The harder end of the test will remain similar to the recent past, but the proof problems will disappear. Tie breaking will be time-based.
Many of the 100 problems on the 2008 iTest will involve a storyline that will provide various forms of context for many of the problems. We believe this approach will provide a unique opportunity to educate certain types of learners in addition to making the contest more enjoyable.
Additionally, teams from multiple states will be disallowed. We believe the contest to be more beneficial to more students, and more interesting as a competition with MOP dream teams essentially disallowed. This also prevents the need for a red queen race between increasingly more knowledgeable MOSPers and problem writers who often spend 10-12 hours crafting a single problem to challenge the best and brightest students. Added time pressure should also prevent the need for more than a few difficult-to-write olympiad level problems.
We believe the iTest loses nothing, and gains significantly with these changes, and that the 2008 iTest will be the most enjoyable of the iTest competitions to date.
We thank Zach Abel and Adam Hesterberg for their continued contributions to the test-writing process.
We also thank the Southern Company for providing generous support, enabling us to improve and expand the iTest.
First, the iTest aims to be as inclusive as possible, providing opportunities for a very broad array of students to compete in a national math competition. For this reason, we are expanding the total number of problems, including more problems at the easier end of the spectrum, as well as more at the approximate level of the AMC 10 and AMC 12 exams.
The harder end of the test will remain similar to the recent past, but the proof problems will disappear. Tie breaking will be time-based.
Many of the 100 problems on the 2008 iTest will involve a storyline that will provide various forms of context for many of the problems. We believe this approach will provide a unique opportunity to educate certain types of learners in addition to making the contest more enjoyable.
Additionally, teams from multiple states will be disallowed. We believe the contest to be more beneficial to more students, and more interesting as a competition with MOP dream teams essentially disallowed. This also prevents the need for a red queen race between increasingly more knowledgeable MOSPers and problem writers who often spend 10-12 hours crafting a single problem to challenge the best and brightest students. Added time pressure should also prevent the need for more than a few difficult-to-write olympiad level problems.
We believe the iTest loses nothing, and gains significantly with these changes, and that the 2008 iTest will be the most enjoyable of the iTest competitions to date.
We thank Zach Abel and Adam Hesterberg for their continued contributions to the test-writing process.
We also thank the Southern Company for providing generous support, enabling us to improve and expand the iTest.
Friday, March 28, 2008
iTest TOC Statistics -- First Two Rounds
I just got done reviewing statistics for the first couple of rounds of the 2008 iTest TOC. At first, I just wanted to look through them for the fun of it, but as soon as I did it occurred to me that I should take the opportunity to think about how hard the problems are for each round's competitors. This helps me know how hard to craft future problems.
Similarly to last year, I wrote nearly all the problems for the first three rounds (unlike last year, I split duties with Adam Hesterberg and Zach Abel for the last three rounds -- just the three hard geometry problems were due to Zach last year). The problems are intended to be AIME level during the first three rounds -- mostly mid to hard AIME level given that students do have several days to work, but are also challenged for speed. I am always interested in feedback on the problems in order to improve the competition.
While they are difficult to write, my hope is to continue to include a few puzzle problems. I have always enjoyed them more than most other problem types, and they are a little more rare in American mathematics competitions. A competition like this one may simple be a better venue for them than most.
Statistics -- Rounds 1 and 2
Judging from the statistics, the problems have been at an appropriate level. Only six students have answered all ten correctly during the first two rounds. One of those, In Young Cho, has been defeated in Round 2 due to superior time performance by Jeffrey Chen. Congratulations to Cho on a nice performance.
Edit: Justin Kopinsky also correctly answer all 10 problems, making 7 students total. But like Cho, Kopinsky was defeated in Round 2, with Jeremy Hahn solving all five problems in less time. Perhaps Hahn wants to keep the TOC championship at East Chapel Hill (2007 iTest TOC champion Arnav Tripathy graduated from East Chapel Hill).
One surprise to me is that Round 2 problem 4 was the easiest of the round. Out of the 26 students to submit answers, nobody missed it, while five and six students respectively missed problems 1 and 3.
Problem 5 was the hardest on both rounds so far, which is not a big surprise. But I don't believe this was the case last year.
Of the students who submitted problems during the first two rounds, average scores in both rounds were between 17 and 18 points. I didn't really have a goal for that average score, but I feel like these scores suggest that the problems are at a reasonable level of difficulty. It's also probably true that these averages are mildly inflated given that a few students in each round did not submit scores. While in some cases this may reflect that a student simply did not have time to compete or chose to pursue other priorities, it is also likely that a few students did not submit scores in anticipation of defeat, meaning they failed to solve at least one of the problems.
I doubt Round 1 will ever have full participation for this reason, though it's nice to see that over the past couple of years, participation in later rounds has been nearly full.
So, in total, there were five perfect scorers in the "Sweet 16". I'll try to report back as the contest progresses.
Please let us know what you think about the problems in terms of difficulty and topic spread.
Similarly to last year, I wrote nearly all the problems for the first three rounds (unlike last year, I split duties with Adam Hesterberg and Zach Abel for the last three rounds -- just the three hard geometry problems were due to Zach last year). The problems are intended to be AIME level during the first three rounds -- mostly mid to hard AIME level given that students do have several days to work, but are also challenged for speed. I am always interested in feedback on the problems in order to improve the competition.
While they are difficult to write, my hope is to continue to include a few puzzle problems. I have always enjoyed them more than most other problem types, and they are a little more rare in American mathematics competitions. A competition like this one may simple be a better venue for them than most.
Statistics -- Rounds 1 and 2
Judging from the statistics, the problems have been at an appropriate level. Only six students have answered all ten correctly during the first two rounds. One of those, In Young Cho, has been defeated in Round 2 due to superior time performance by Jeffrey Chen. Congratulations to Cho on a nice performance.
Edit: Justin Kopinsky also correctly answer all 10 problems, making 7 students total. But like Cho, Kopinsky was defeated in Round 2, with Jeremy Hahn solving all five problems in less time. Perhaps Hahn wants to keep the TOC championship at East Chapel Hill (2007 iTest TOC champion Arnav Tripathy graduated from East Chapel Hill).
One surprise to me is that Round 2 problem 4 was the easiest of the round. Out of the 26 students to submit answers, nobody missed it, while five and six students respectively missed problems 1 and 3.
Problem 5 was the hardest on both rounds so far, which is not a big surprise. But I don't believe this was the case last year.
Of the students who submitted problems during the first two rounds, average scores in both rounds were between 17 and 18 points. I didn't really have a goal for that average score, but I feel like these scores suggest that the problems are at a reasonable level of difficulty. It's also probably true that these averages are mildly inflated given that a few students in each round did not submit scores. While in some cases this may reflect that a student simply did not have time to compete or chose to pursue other priorities, it is also likely that a few students did not submit scores in anticipation of defeat, meaning they failed to solve at least one of the problems.
I doubt Round 1 will ever have full participation for this reason, though it's nice to see that over the past couple of years, participation in later rounds has been nearly full.
So, in total, there were five perfect scorers in the "Sweet 16". I'll try to report back as the contest progresses.
Please let us know what you think about the problems in terms of difficulty and topic spread.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
New Blog
Building my own new blog (here) has spurred me to display my thoughts more freely on the internet once again. I hadn't posted here much at all, but I will probably cross-post some now that I am writing.
I hope students are enjoying the 2008 iTest TOC problems as much as I have enjoyed crafting solutions to them. It is not an easy task to put together a competition with problems as hard as these must be, but it's worth it. I believe there are students exploring new concepts at each level of the competition, and even more enjoying the test of their problem solving skills.
With Round 4 beginning next week, now we get to see who can wrangle Zach Abel's geometry beasts, and the rest of the problems as well.
I hope students are enjoying the 2008 iTest TOC problems as much as I have enjoyed crafting solutions to them. It is not an easy task to put together a competition with problems as hard as these must be, but it's worth it. I believe there are students exploring new concepts at each level of the competition, and even more enjoying the test of their problem solving skills.
With Round 4 beginning next week, now we get to see who can wrangle Zach Abel's geometry beasts, and the rest of the problems as well.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Tournament of Champions Round 1 Underway
Round 1 of the 2008 iTest Tournament of Champions is well underway, with the initial set of questions being released yesterday and posted on the iTest homepage.
This year's set of contestants are extremely talented and it should be a brutal fight to determine this year's National Champion. Of course, we're also very excited about our testwriting team, led by Mathew Crawford.
Should be another very exciting year of competition. Looking forward to seeing what upsets and breakout performances we have in our opening round!
This year's set of contestants are extremely talented and it should be a brutal fight to determine this year's National Champion. Of course, we're also very excited about our testwriting team, led by Mathew Crawford.
Should be another very exciting year of competition. Looking forward to seeing what upsets and breakout performances we have in our opening round!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
iTest TOC
The first three rounds of the 2008 iTest TOC are nearly polished, and the last three rounds are not far from complete as well. The problems are a little harder this year than last, as I expect the greater participation by top students in the 2007 iTest to carry over into the TOC. This is part of the reason I asked Adam Hesterberg to join the iTest writing staff. He and Zach Abel have each contributed three problems to the mix, and the overall level of difficult is a step up. As usual, we ask Zach to write the hardest geometry problems, which are always impressive. I have been impressed as well with Adam's creativity. His problems are great, and different from what students usually see on contests.
I know the entire iTest staff is excited and interested to see how many students are able to solve all the problems at each level.
I know the entire iTest staff is excited and interested to see how many students are able to solve all the problems at each level.
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