Hard Math For Middle School: Imlem Edition

by Glenn Ellison

For forty years the Intermediate Math League of Eastern Massachusetts (IMLEM) has challenged students to aim higher than standard math courses and build a deeper understanding. This book is for students who take up this challenge. The topics align with modern middle school curricula: fractions, decimals, percents, prime factorization, plane and spatial geometry, probability, statistics, Venn diagrams, combinatorics, modular arithmetic, algebra. But Hard Math asks much harder questions. For example, rather than asking how to write 2/5 as a decimal, it asks students how to use 99999 = 9 × 41 × 271 to find the tenth digit in the decimal for 1/271. And it teaches the material and problem-solving strategies needed to solve them. The book is organized to serve IMLEM students and coaches: each chapter covers material for a given contest. But it can also be enrichment for anyone who wishes his or her math class were harder and preparation for other middle school math contests. Most students (basically everyone except students in MA schools that participate in IMLEM but not in Mathcounts) would prefer the newer "IMLEM Plus" edition with a purple cover rather than the blue-covered edition listed here. The newer purple version has an additional chapter covering extra material that students who aspire to do well in Mathcounts will want to know.

Genres: Mathematics

196 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2008