Two Belmont seventh-graders recently took home top honors in the AMC 8, a math competition that tested their problem-solving skills against students nationwide. More than 159,000 nationwide participated in the 25-question, 40-minute, multiple-choice exam open to students in grade eight and under.
Kevin Shi and Corin Ross-Montenegro, students at the Acera School in Winchester, earned an Honor Roll of Distinction award for scores in the spring 2024 American Mathematics Competition. Both boys garnered 23 of a possible 25 points, earning top 1% placements nationally.
Kevin, whose favorite subject in school is—unsurprisingly—math, said his goal was to score 20 points. He was happy when he learned he scored 23 and ranked in the top 1%. This is not the first time he has entered the competition—he also competed in fifth and sixth grades. Next year will be the last year he is eligible to enter the competition, and he hopes to score at least 20 points.
“I’ve got to beat my other friends,” he said.
Kevin enrolled at the Acera School as a sixth-grader, finding the math program at the Belmont Middle School “boring and too easy.”
Now, math is “a lot more challenging and fun.”
“You can explore a lot more,” Kevin said. “I really liked number theory, and we learned a lot about that … proving that there is an infinite number of prime numbers.”
In his spare time, he enjoys playing video games, mainly Minecraft.
Corin has been attending the Acera School since sixth grade. He particularly likes that the math program is based on skill rather than age. He first entered the math competition as a sixth-grader, scoring 17 out of 25, so he was surprised to score 23 points this year.
As for the difficulty of the test, “Some of the questions were hard, and some were easy,” according to Corin.
He encourages students interested in entering the math contest to just go for it.
“It’s fun to do. Even if you do badly, it’s fine,” he said. “You don’t lose anything by doing it, and you might find you like it.”
Corin enjoys writing, hanging out with friends, and playing basketball in his spare time.
STEM School
Math curriculum coordinator Viktor Grigoryan said Acera is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)- focused school that emphasizes creativity and leadership.
About 120 students attend the private K-8 school, which caters primarily to gifted students. He said students can also take a bonus year after eighth grade before going to high school.
“What distinguishes the typical Acera student from a typical student that I’ve seen at other schools … there is a very high motivation,” Grigoryan said. “Many students come here because they want to find their tribe of other students who are equally motivated and want to learn.”
While students are placed in core classes by grade, math students are placed according to their ability.
“It’s important to place students where they are ready to learn and challenge themselves,” Grigoryan said.
There are about eight students in each math class.
The American Mathematics Competition consists of content usually taught in middle school but with challenging problems that require “out-of-the-box thinking.” Grigoryan said the test includes problems not typically seen in a regular math class. He added that Kevin and Corin are strong math students, as evidenced by their high achievement in the math contest.
“I teach both in math classes,” Grigoryan said. “They are wonderful human beings … great students.”
