The New Horizons School math department organized a math competition named Grand Prix in which they invited more than 20 schools, including Lux Mundi. The tournament objective was to promote math usage in olympiads. That school is associated with the American Mathematics Competition Program(MAA AMC) that gives the official standardized test. Lux Mundi picked students that teachers thought as gifted or good at the subject. They chose the three students with higher grades on AP math.

I had the opportunity to participate and took the AMC 12 because of my age of 16. This exam covers the entire math high school program and advanced problems from it, excluding calculus. It consisted of 25 questions that had five multiple choices; for every correct, you had 6 points; if you did nothing, you earned 1.5 points; and if it was wrong, you lost the points.

My method was to always to answer, and even for the toughest questions, I marked an answer. I wasn’t ready for that exam because of all the themes that I am missing. Also, I am glad that I took it and it helped me realize that there are a lot of mathematicians better than me, and there will always be. After this experience, I certainly encourage students to get better and study mathematics because it is very related to logic, and it will help in their daily life. For students interested in tournaments like this, I recommend them to create a club about it to start participating in local events. Whether you hate it or not, mathematics will be present in your life, so better be good at it.

I would like to take the chance to thank the school for giving me such a fantastic experience that changed my focus on some issues related to math.