OFFICIAL
RULES (updated 2015)
GENERAL
ELIGIBILITY
Colleges may enter either a team of five or more students or individual students if fewer than five students wish to compete. A student is eligible to compete if s/he have not earned a two-year degree (or higher) or if s/he has not achieved junior standing (or higher) at a four-year institution. Part-time students are eligible. A committee, including the SML Coordinator, shall be appointed to approve eligibility.
ELIGIBILITY
FOR THE GRAND PRIZE
In addition to meeting the general eligibility requirements the student must have successfully completed a minimum of 12 semester hours (or equivalent quarter hours) of college course work by the end of the second exam, including courses in progress at the time of the second exam which are completed successfully. Students enrolled in a four-year institution or in high school at the time of the competition are NOT eligible for the grand prize, nor are previous recipients of the grand prize. Official transcripts and a letter signed by the student and local moderator certifying eligibility will be required in order to award the prize.
To
register, moderators should visit the AMATYC website at www.amatyc.org.
All registrations will be handled electronically. Once all
fields are completed and transmitted successfully, your registration
will be confirmed by an acknowledgement email from the AMATYC
Office. If you register and do not receive an acknowledgement
confirmation, you will need to contact the AMATYC Office to
be sure your form was transmitted correctly. Registration
begins August 1st. Registrations accepted after September
30 will incur a $15 late fee.
New
registrations are welcome anytime during the testing year.
However, to insure receiving materials in time to compete
in the first round and to avoid the late fee, register online
by September 30th.
To participate in the Student Mathematics League for the academic year, colleges must register and pay the registration fee. The completed registration form and fee payment is due September 30. Registration fees are waived for colleges who are Institutional members as of October 1, if their completed registration form is received by September 30. All registrations (including those from Institutional member colleges) and fees received after September 30 will incur a late charge. Registration forms will not be accepted after October 31. The Round 2 tests for the Student Mathematics League will only be sent to colleges who have paid the registration fee by October 31.The annual registration fee is established by the Executive Board. This money is used for prizes and operating costs.
The
moderator at each college is responsible for the proper administration
of the examinations, examination security before and during
the period in which they are to be administered, and the scoring
and reporting of examination results. The moderator will also
construct ten potential exam questions and send them to the
Test Developer by April 1.
TEST
ADMINISTRATION PROCEDURES
The
two examinations that constitute the contest are administered
locally during a period in October/ November and February/March.
Tests last one hour and are administered on any one day of
a testing window designated by the Director. At the discretion
of the moderator, students arriving before the end of the
hour may be allowed one full hour (thus the maximum time of
the session is two hours). Each test may be administered only
once at each school. The administration of the Student Mathematics
League test shall comply with the Americans with Disabilities
Act. Any accommodation will be in accordance with the procedures
used on the campus where the test is administered.
The tests will arrive by email to the moderator
named during the registration process. Local moderators are
to collect the examinations after they are administered and
are to keep them until the examination window closes. Answers to each
exam are distributed by email after the testing window closes.
Tests
should be graded upon receipt of answers and the official
results should be sent immediately to the Student Mathematics
League Chair:
-
Steve Hundert
College of Southern Maryland
22950 Hollywood Road
Leonardtown, MD 20650
sml@amatyc.org
The
level of the tests is precalculus mathematics. Questions are
from a standard syllabus in College Algebra and Trigonometry
and may involve precalculus algebra, trigonometry, synthetic
and analytic geometry, and probability; questions that are
completely self-contained may be included as well. All questions
are short-answer or multiple choice (multiple choice questions
will have at least 4 response choices). No partial credit
is allowed in scoring. The test will be sent to each participating
school to arrive prior to the test window. Printing errors
that are not corrected prior to the test period will invalidate
that particular question, and all students will be marked
correct for that question.
Students
are permitted to use any scientific or graphics calculator
that does not have a QWERTY (i.e. typewriter) keyboard.
The
SML Coordinator will verify and summarize the overall results at
the close of the submission window and send these results
back to the colleges. No results for a previous round will
be accepted once the next round begins. For scoring purposes
the top five contestants from each college on each exam
comprise that college’s team (thus the team may change
its composition from one exam to the next).
The
moderator at a college who wishes to protest a question
on an exam must do so in writing to the SML Coordinator within
two weeks of the last day of the examination window of the
round containing the disputed question. The SML Coordinator will
consult the Test Developer. The SML Coordinator's decision after
consulting the Test Developer is final.
The results of each round
of the competition are final once the deadline for submitting scores to the SML
Coordinator has passed. Any college that fails to meet the submission deadline
will be disqualified for that round.
To
be eligible for an individual award, a participant must compete
on both exams. The team score consists of the best five scores
on the exam in each round. The individual student team members
may change from exam to exam. A team may consist of fewer
than five students if necessary, and in this case the team's
score is the sum of the scores of the students participating.
The grand prize for the qualified individual with the highest
total score on the two exams is a $3,000 scholarship to be
used to continue his or her education at an accredited four-year
institution. In the case of a tie for the grand prize, the
scholarship will be evenly divided. The top ten ranking individuals
will receive appropriate prizes of a mathematical nature,
as will the five highest ranking members of the first place
team. The five highest ranking teams, as well as the team
and individual champions from each of AMATYC's eight regions,
will receive plaques at the following year’s AMATYC annual
conference. In addition, certificates of merit will be awarded
to the top five individuals from each participating school.
The prizes, plaques, and certificates are sponsored by the
AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF TWO-YEAR COLLEGES.
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