This year’s Australian Mathematics Competition (AMC) is scheduled on Aug. 7, 2014.  AMC is a mathematics competition run by the Australian Mathematics Trust for students from year 3 up to year 12 in Australia, and their equivalent grades in other countries. Since its inception in 1978 in the Australian Capital Territory, the participation numbers have increased to around 600,000, with around 100,000 coming from 40 countries outside Australia, making it the world's largest mathematics competition. Commonwealth Bank is now the principal sponsor of the Australian Mathematics Competition.

Any student from Year 3 to Year 12 is invited to enter this internationally recognised competition through their school. AMC consists of five separate papers, each with 30 questions in the Middle Primary (Years 3 and 4), Upper Primary (Years 5 and 6), Junior (Years 7 and 8), Intermediate (Years 9 and 10) and Senior (Years 11 and 12) divisions. Time allowed is 60 minutes for the primary papers and 75 minutes for the secondary papers.

In the Philippines, it is supervised by the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) in cooperation with the MTG. It is held in at least four areas all over the country—one in the National Capital Region, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Over 1,000 students share the prizes and around 50% of participants qualify to receive a Certificate of High Distinction, Distinction or Credit. All other entrants in the competition receive a Certificate of Participation or a Proficiency Certificate. All students are also provided with a detailed report showing how they performed on each problem with wider statistical rankings.

Although it is aimed at the average student, the AMC also identifies gifted students. A prestigious Australian Mathematics Competition medal is awarded to students with an outstanding result, both within a region and overall in the competition. All prize winners in 2014 will be given free entry to the 2015 Australian Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad (AIMO), which is the first screening competition for the prestigious Australian Mathematical Olympiad Invitational Program. It is worth noting that Australia’s leading mathematicians aged under 40 were discovered and developed at least partly as a result of taking part in the AMC.

The AMC is administered by the not-for-profit Australian Mathematics Trust (AMT), which is under the Trusteeship of the University of Canberra. The problems created for AMC papers are set to the highest possible standards by volunteer teams of the most experienced mathematics teachers and academics in the country. The Australian Mathematics Trust has an unparalleled, unblemished record for the integrity and reliability of its papers.

Scoring System

Questions 1 to 10 are worth 3 points, 11 to 20 are worth 4 points and 21 to 25 are worth 5 points. Questions 26 to 30 are worth 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 points, respectively.
No penalties apply for wrong attempts. Maximum score equals 135 points.
The first 25 questions are multiple choice with 5 choices. The last 5 question have an integer answer between 0 and 999.

Awards system

Despite the name of the competition, students are allocated awards for their performance relative to other students in their region, of the same year level. For Australian students, this means their State or Territory, and for other students, their country. Although the personal data such as date of birth and gender are collected, this is not used in the percentile ranking, which is only determined by the raw score. The award scheme is as such

•   Prize – Students above the 99.7 percentile
•   High Distinction – Students between the 98 and 99.7 percentile
•   Distinction -Students between the 85 and 98 percentile
•   Credit – Students between the 50 and 85 percentile
•   Proficiency – Students below the 50 percentile who have a satisfactory score (at least 32 but may sometimes be lower)
•   Participation – Students who have not received a higher award

Students who have won a prize may also receive a medal if they are determined to have performed outstandingly well with respect to their region and the competition as a whole. All students receive a certificate, and prizewinners are awarded an additional monetary sum or book voucher. Students who achieve the maximum score are awarded the Bernhard Neumann certificate. From 2008, this award has been renamed the Peter O'Halloran Certificate in honour of the foundation Executive Director of the Trust. In 1998, a record 10 students in Australia, and 23 in Singapore achieved the maximum attainable score. A re-examination was carried out in order to determine the Singaporean medallists.

All students receive an analysis sheet along with their certificate, which records their answers for each question, along with the correct answers. The questions are divided into four categories: arithmetic, algebra, geometry and problem solving, and the number of questions that the student answered correctly for each category is listed along with the regional mean.

Every school receives a more comprehensive analysis, with a complete record of answers given by all students, as well as the percentage of students choosing any given answer for a given question, and a comparison to the percentage of students choosing any given answer for a given question in the whole region. Schools also receive analysis of their students by mathematical topic, compared to the entire region.