AMC 10 Preparation Course: Live Classes for the 2026 Contest

The AIME cutoff is now a fixed number — and that changes preparation

From the 2026-27 cycle the MAA has replaced the old percentile system with fixed AIME qualification thresholds. On the AMC 10 the threshold is 100 points. It is no longer a moving target that depends on how the rest of the country performed; it is a number you can aim at from day one.

That matters more than it sounds. Under the old system a student could score 103 and miss out because the cutoff landed at 105. Now, 100 qualifies. Preparation becomes an arithmetic problem: 100 points out of 150 means roughly 17 correct answers, or 16 correct with a few well-judged blanks. Every planning decision below follows from that.

AMC 10 2026 dates and deadlines

• AMC 10A — Thursday 5 November 2026
• AMC 10B — Friday 13 November 2026
• Registration closes — 15 October 2026 (late deadline 28 October, returning competition managers only)
• AIME I and II — 5 and 6 February 2027, at Pearson test centres

A student may sit both the A and the B paper. Only the higher score counts toward AIME qualification, so entering both is close to a free second attempt and we recommend it.

Format and scoring

25 multiple-choice questions in 75 minutes, no calculator. Scoring is 6 points for a correct answer, 1.5 for a blank, and 0 for a wrong one. That 1.5 is the most misunderstood number in the competition. A blank is worth more than a guess unless you have eliminated at least three of the five options — so a student who guesses at random on the last five questions is, on average, throwing away marks they already had.

Eligibility: Grade 10 or below, and under 17.5 years of age on the day of the contest.

The syllabus, and where the marks actually are

The AMC 10 covers the secondary curriculum up to but not including trigonometry, logarithms and complex numbers:

• Algebra — quadratics, Vieta's relations, systems, sequences, functional equations, inequalities
• Counting and probability — combinations, complementary counting, expectation, stars and bars, geometric probability
• Number theory — divisibility, modular arithmetic, digit problems, factor counting, Diophantine equations
• Geometry — triangles and circles, similarity, power of a point, coordinate methods, three-dimensional figures

Questions 1 to 10 are approachable for a prepared student. Questions 11 to 20 decide the paper — this is the band where a 100 is won or lost. Questions 21 to 25 are genuinely hard and, for a student targeting the threshold rather than a perfect score, are often best left alone.

Why capable students miss 100

Most students who fall short of the AIME threshold do not fall short because the mathematics defeated them. They fall short for three reasons, and the research on competition performance is consistent about it: a topic gap, a careless error, or a strategy error — guessing where they should have skipped, or grinding a hard question while three easier ones went unanswered.

The practical consequence: a student scoring in the 80s usually does not need more theory. They need to stop losing four marks a paper to arithmetic and eight to bad question selection. Twelve marks is the difference between 88 and 100.

What we do differently: diagnosis, not just mocks

Anyone can set a mock. The programme is built around what happens after it. Every wrong or blank answer is classified by cause:

1. Concept gap — the technique was not known. Needs teaching.
2. Careless slip — right method, wrong arithmetic. Needs a checking routine.
3. Slow method — correct, but by the long route, which cost marks elsewhere.
4. Misread — the wrong question was answered correctly.
5. Poor selection — time sunk into a question that should have been skipped.

The practice papers on this site record how long each question took, so this is measured rather than guessed. A student who spends nine minutes on question 22 and leaves questions 12 and 14 blank has a selection problem, and no amount of extra geometry teaching will fix it.

Each student keeps a running error log. Within a month or two the pattern is usually unmistakable, and the weekly plan is written from it rather than from a generic syllabus.

Practice material included

The programme includes the full AMC 10 practice series published on this site: fifteen papers, 425 questions, every one with a worked solution that names the technique rather than just showing the algebra. Two topic papers per area — number theory, algebra, geometry, counting and probability, permutations and combinatorics — plus five full-length mocks under real timing. Three papers are free to try before you commit to anything.

A realistic timeline

Six to twelve months of structured work gives the strongest results. A student starting now for the November 2026 sitting has enough time to close concept gaps properly and then spend the final two months on timed papers and error-log work, which is where the last fifteen points usually come from. Starting in September for a November contest is possible but leaves no room for the diagnostic phase to do its job.

How the programme runs

Two to three live sessions a week, each one hour. The AMC 10 is a 75-minute paper, so sessions build from technique work to full-length timed papers as the contest approaches. Sessions are scheduled around Indian, Gulf and UK evenings, and every one is recorded so a missed class is never a lost week.

You choose the format that suits the student:

• One-to-one — the whole hour is spent on this student's specific weaknesses. Suits a student with an uneven profile, or one preparing on a short timeline.
• Small group of two to six — students see how others attack the same problem, which is often how a faster method is learned. Costs the same per session.

Rs 650 per session. At two sessions a week that is about Rs 5,200 a month; at three, about Rs 7,800. You pay for the sessions you take. There is no admission fee, no material fee and no annual lock-in, which is unusual in this market — most AMC 10 programmes sell a fixed cohort of eight to sixteen classes for a single upfront payment of well over Rs 50,000.

What is included

• Two to three live hours a week with a coach who has worked through these papers
• Recordings of every session
• The full practice bank on this site, with worked solutions to every question
• A written diagnostic after each mock, naming what to fix and in what order
• Marked homework between sessions — the work between classes is where the score moves
• Guidance on registration, which for most families is the confusing part

Registration is separate from tuition

The MAA does not register individual students. Entry runs through a school or an approved test centre with a competition manager. If the student's school does not offer the AMC 10, we will help find a centre that does — this catches out a large number of well-prepared students every year, and it is worth sorting out months before the deadline rather than in the final week.

Start with a free trial session

The first session is free and is a working session, not a sales call. The student sits a short diagnostic, we mark it together, and you leave with a written view of where the score currently stands and what would move it fastest. If the programme is not right for the student, we will say so.