Hard Math for Middle School: IMLEM Plus Edition

The IMLEM Plus edition of Hard Math is designed for students participating in both the Intermediate Math League of Eastern Massachusetts and Mathcounts(r). The topics align with modern middle school curricula: fractions, decimals, percents, prime factorization, plane and spatial geometry, probability, statistics, combinatorics, algebra, modular arithmetic, etc. But Hard Math challenges students to develop a deeper understanding: it asks much harder questions than standard texts and teaches the material and problem solving strategies students need to attack them. For example, rather than asking students to write 2/5 as a decimal, it might ask students to use the fact that 99999 = 9 × 41 × 271 to find the tenth digit in the decimal expansion for 1/271. (It might ask this, but never actually does.) The organization is designed to serve IMLEM students' needs: the first five chapters cover exactly what students should learn for each of IMLEM's monthly contests. But the text can also serve students preparing for other math contests or as general enrichment. The IMLEM Plus edition of Hard Math can be used interchangeably with the IMLEM edition. The only difference is that the IMLEM Plus edition contains an extra chapter covering topics that do not appear on IMLEM contests, but which the author feels are useful to know if a student wants to do very well on Mathcounts(r). Mathcounts(r) is a registered trademark of the Mathcounts Foundation, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this book.