People with MathCounts experience: I need some advice!

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

So I’m tutoring my little sister who is a 4th (soon-to-be-5th) grader who is attending a charter school. The charter school places kids in advanced classes starting in the middle school grades (taking AP courses in 8th grade is not uncommon there). So that my sister can be placed in advanced math courses, I’m teaching her basic algebra and geometry this summer (the plan is she takes AP Calculus AB in 9th grade and Calculus BC in 10th grade). That alone seems simple enough but when she moves on to 6th grade, she will be old enough to try out for the MathCounts team. So I wanted to know how I can prep her for the competition after she gets her algebra and geometry skills down.

I know very little about MathCounts since I did not do it when I was in middle school. I participated in AMC 12 in high school but the highest score I got was an 87. I never took math competitions too seriously because I was never really exposed to them at an early age but I want to prep my sister for them better. I thought some things I can do to prepare her is get her some of the Art of Problem Solving textbooks since they’re very competition-oriented. Are there other things I can do to help her make the school MathCounts team? I know that having an Algebra/Geometry foundation at an early middle school grade will help but at the charter school, a lot of kids have the same foundation. She will not really stand out from the crowd with advanced math classes alone.

2

There are also AoPS online courses that she can take, and there’s a game called For The Win on their website that is modeled after the MATHCounts Countdown Round, which is a weak point for many kids.

3

FTW is good, you can also check out other AoPS resources such as Alcumus, or other books such as Competition Math for Middle School.

4

Competition Math for Middle School was what got me on the path of competition math. It’s an absolute must read for beginning students.
The AoPS Volume 1 book came next.
After finishing this, she will be able to figure out for herself what will help her the most, but regardless, guide her toward ApPS if she’s still interested but hasn’t found it yet.