AMC 8 Handy Facts / Skills (Version 0.

1)
Learn the items marked with a first. Then once you have mastered them try to learn the other topics.
1. Squares and Cubes of small integers, powers of 2, decimals represenation of common fractions
n

n2

n3

2n

n!

11 121

27

16

64

25

n2

fraction decimal fraction decimal

12 144

1/2
1/3

0. 5
0. 3

1/7

0. 142857

13 169

2/3

0. 6

1/8

0. 125

16

24

14 196

1/4

0. 25

3/8

0. 375

125

32

120

15 225

3/4

0. 75

5/8

0. 625

36

216

64

720

16 256

1/5

0. 2

7/8

0. 875

49

343

128 5040

17 289

2/5

0. 4

1/9

0. 1

64

512

256

18 324

3/5

0. 6

1/10

0. 1

81

729

512

19 361

4/5

0. 8

10 100 1000 1024

20 400

1/20

0. 05

2. Divisibility
a. Prime Factorization - (1) What is a prime? What is a composite?
(2) Any composite number can be written as a product of two other numbers.
(3) Continuing (2) over and over again, you'll get a product of primes. This is called prime
factorization.
Exercise: Find prime factorization of 78, 91, 500, and 324.
Must: remember all primes that are not greater than 97.
There are 25 of them:
2,3,5,7,
31,37,
61,67,
97.
11,13,17,19,
41,43,47,
71,73,79
23,29,
53,59,
83,89,
b. Primality Testing - to test a positive integer a to see if its prime, we only need to check to see if it
is divisible by the primes p such that p2 a.
Exercise: Check if the following numbers are prime -- 71, 107, 161, 481
c. GCD and LCM
i. to get the prime factorization of gcda, b write down the prime factorizations of a, b and take the
least power of each prime that appears in both
ii. to get the prime factorization of lcma, b write down the prime factorizations of a, b and take the
largest power of each prime that appears in either
iii. lcma, b gcda, b ab

d. Divisibility Tests
n is divisible by: if:
2

the rightmost digit of n is 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8

the sum of the digits of n is divisible by 3

the number formed by erasing all but the

rightmost two digits of n is divisible by 4

the rightmost digit of n is 0 or 5

n is divisible by 2 and also by 3

the number formed by erasing all but the

rightmost three digits of n is divisible by 8

the sum of the digits of n is divisible by 9

10

the rightmost digit of n is 0

the difference between the sum of every other

11

digit of n and the sum of the remaining digits is

divisible by 11

3. Adding
a. Gausss Formula
nn 1
2
b. Sum of an Arithmetic Sequence - is the average of the first and last terms, multiplied by the
number of terms (the number of terms is one more than the difference between the first and last
terms divided by the common difference)
123n

4. Counting
a. Permutations
i. the number of ordered arrangements of n distinct things
n!

ii. the number of ordered arrangements of k things selected from n distinct things if duplicates are
allowed
kn

5. Algebra
a. Rules of arithmetic
Addition and multiplication are commutative: x+y=y+x
Distributive properties:
b. Famous identities

xy=yx

a(b+c) = ab + ac (a+b)c = ac + bc
(a+b)(c+d) = ac + ad + bc + bd

Difference of two squares: x 2 y 2 x yx y

c. An Application: Fast arithmetic by difference of two squares

Ex: 97 103 100 3100 3 100 2 3 2 9991
Ex: 47 2 3 2 47 347 3 44 50 44 100 12 4400
Ex: 97 2 97 397 3 3 2 100 94 9 949

1
2

2200

G. 6ROYLQJ(TXDWLRQV7U\WRGRWKHVDPHoperationsRQERWKVLGHVVRWKDW the variable is isolated

e. 6ROYLQJWord Problems: (1) Speed = Distance over Time.
(2) In the case of proportionality, set the old ratio equal to the new ratio.

6.

Probability
Let S be a set (called the sample space) and E a subset of S (called an event). Then the probability of
obtaining an element of E when selecting an element of S at random is
#E
PE
#S
where #X is the number of elements in the set X, i.e. to compute the probability of something
happening you divide the number of ways it can happen by the total number of possible outcomes.

7.

Geometry
a. Angle facts
-Vertical angles are equal.
-A revolution is 360 degrees.
-A straight angle is 180 degrees.
-Four right angles make a revolution, i.e. right angle = 90 degrees.
-For any triangle, the sum of the interior angles is 180 degress.
-For any quadrilaterl, the sum of the interior angles is 360 degress.
-For any polygon with N sides, the sum of the interior angles is (n-2)*180 degrees.

b. Famous triangles (and multiples of these)

30

45

13
5

45
4

60
1

12

c. Other Pythagorean triples

3,4,5

7,24,25

9,40,41

5,12,13

8,15,17

20,21,29

d. Diagonal of the unit square: 2

e.Diagonal of the unit cube: 3

f. Suppose that line m and n are parallel, and that
t intersect both lines. Then:
7

m
5

3
1

4
2

8
6

i. Alternate interior angles: Angles 4 and 5 are equal; angles 3 and 6 are equal.
ii. Same side interior angle: Angles 3 and 5 add up to 180 degress; so do angles 4 and 6.
iii. Corresponding angles: Angles 1 and 5 are equal; so do angles 3 and 7, angles 2 and 6, and angles 4
and 8, correspondingly.

g. The ratio of the areas of two similar figures is the ratio of the side lengths squared. Similarly, the
ratio of the volumes of two similar figures is the ratio of the side lengths cubed.
h. Famous volumes, areas, and perimeters
CIRCUMFERENCE
Circle

SURFACE AREA & VOLUME

c d
c 2r
Rectangular Prism V A base h
Cylinde
V r 2 h

AREA
Square

A s2

Rectangle

A bh

Parallelogram

A bh

Trapezoid

Circle

A r 2

b 1 b 2
2

h
PYTHAGOREAN THEOREM
Right triangle

Triangle

1
2

bh

a2 b2 c2
c

a2 b2

c2 b2

8.

Regular polyhedra (Platonic Solids):

Name

# Faces # Edges # Vertices

Tetrahedron

Cube

12

Octahedron

12

Dodecahedron 12

30

20

Icosahedron

30

12

20

Picture

9. Polyhedra in general:
(a) FACT: If v is the number of vertices, e is the number of edges, and f is the
number of faces, then v - e + f = 2
(b) SKILL: All edges are shared by exactly two faces. Therefore if you know the
number of sides of each face, then it is possible to find the number of edges.

10. Strategy Tips

a. GUESS!!! There is no penalty for guessing, so be sure to guess at answers that you dont know,
especially if there are only a few possible answers.
b. Dont get bogged down. If a problem seems like it will take a long time to complete, just skip it and
find problems you can easily answer. Then go back to it if you have time at the end.
c. Look for shorcuts to problems that have an obvious but lengthy solution. For example,
4317 5717 can be computed directly, but it is much quicker to use the distributive law:
4317 5717 43 5717 10017 1700. Almost all AMC problems have both a short
way and a long way to answer them.
d. Always keep your numbers as small as possible when doing calculations by hand. For example, if
you have to compute
20 35
15 14
dont multiply the top and bottom and then try to reduce the resulting fraction like this:
21 35 735 YUCK!!
210
15 14
instead divide out all the common factors first:
21 35 3 7 5 7 7 .
2
15 14
3 5 2 7
e. Dont spend a lot of time looking for shortcuts to problems if the obvious solution can be done in
under 30 seconds!
f. Have FUN!!!