Contests Books

Okay- so it's a good book. But when you read this book, does the word "unrealistic" come to mind? I mean, come on! The outline of this book is okay. Cher, a teenage girl who lives in Beverly Hills meets a, in the words of Cher, "fiercely props, pectorally abled, romance-book cover boy, Troy" and finds that she can win a dream date with him by writing a five thousand word love story. Soon, it becomes a class project, splitting into groups. Inspired by her own father's story of his first love, Ina Klein, she and her peers set to work on writing a new and improved version of the tear-jerking love story of how Jason and Neve were once in love, and Jason was too poor for Neve in the eyes of her father, and eventually when Neve moves away, Jason vows to become an even better and more succesful business man than Neve's father was, and eventually succeeds. Neve, devestated, later changes her name to Nosaj Neerg, Jason Green spelled backwards, and becomes a writer. One day, when Jason holds the book to the mirror, he sees what really happened, and they all live happily ever after. Well, obviously, Cher's story is chosen to be sent to Ani K. Niel, the author of romance novels. Well, Cher meets up with a "way props hunk", Brandon, who helps her put the ideas onto paper. Then, Ani K. calls Cher up and wants to meet her. Thinking that they've won the contest, the whole gang shows up and Ani K. speaks to Cher in private. Cher then finds out that Ani K. is really Ina Klein, except she reversed her name.(Ani K. Niel, Ina Klein?) Cher has to keep this a secret, and when her best friend, Di, finds out something's up and Cher won't tell her, she gets sizzling mad. Cher promises Di that she'll tell her later, and, of course, she does. She also arranges it so that Ani K. can meet up with her father once more at her friend Summer's parents' anniversary party. Then she and Brandon hook up, as do Ani, or Ina and Mel, Cher's father, do. So like I said, it was a good book. But why wasn't it five stars, you ask? Well the tiny details of how it was worded, it made Cher and her friends sound either like aliens from another planet, extremely haughty popular girls, or both. Here's an excerpt to show you what I mean: " "Your highlights? Wake up and smell the Clairol, girlfriend," De objected. "That is so not all the buckskin wearin' babe was impressed with. That hair quiz was just a lame ploy to snag your number. Cher, you are so the props Neve, a youuthful Cindy, a Demi unhindered by Bruce and babies." " Is it just me when I say we might as well get subtitles to understand this stuff? Thus, the four stars. Not to say I didn't enjoy this book, it was great. Just not..."competent", I guess the word is, enough to meet my standards of flawless reading material. But, nevertheless, I reccomend it greatly. That enough of a review?

I've had this book for about 18 months and so far have made one afghan from it. My niece picked out a pattern she liked, after looking at a couple of my pattern books. There are a couple of other nice afghan square patterns, which I would be willing to consider in the future, but this is not my favorite afghan book. I much prefer "Afghans on the Double" and "Our Best Afghans A to Z". Both of these are also Leisure Arts books, as is "Contest Favorites".

If you enjoy making afghan squares, then you might enjoy this book. There are 30 different afghan squares to chose among. Unfortunately, I have discovered that I'm not a big fan of making afghan squares. Squares are fun to do, are quite portable and provide quick gratification, but there is a lot of tedious work involved in sewing the squares together. On the other hand, I did enjoy making afghan #5 for my niece. Her pattern was detailed and worked up very nicely. Feel free to check out the photo I posted here.

While this book features 30 different afghan squares, only 10 are presented as completed afghans. The rest of the patterns only show one sample square for each pattern. I really enjoy looking at and getting inspiration from seeing completed afghans, so I miss having 30 completed afghans to look at in this book.

This book makes my brain hurt, but in a good way. Some of the essays are pretty tough to read as they are very deeply rooted in the world of art historical criticism, but don't let that stop you from getting this book; you'll learn a lot and come away with some good insights into the subject of photography and the history of photography. It would be very helpful to get a companion book that contains some of the artists and works that are discussed here, so you have the images to look at and non-critical, historical looks at the artists for background and context. Something like Beumont Newhall's "History of Photography" would be an excellent match.

This text compiles the American High School Mathematics Examinations, now called the American Mathematics Competition (AMC), for the years 1966 - 1972. The book contains the questions, their answers and solutions, and a listing of the problems classified by topic. Each examination contains 35 multiple choice questions meant to be answered without the aid of a calculator. In 1966, a penalty was introduced for wrong answers in order to discourage random guessing.

Each examination contains four sections, which are progressively more challenging. The first three contain ten questions apiece, and the last section contains five questions. The editors state that the problems in the first two sections are meant to test for understanding of basic concepts, while the latter sections are meant to test for the ability to apply skills to new situations. The problems draw upon the high school curriculum, but a knowledge of modular arithmetic is helpful. In the subject index, the topics listed include algebra, arithmetic, geometry, and miscellaneous problems drawn from combinatorics, number theory, logic, probability, and set theory. The problems range in difficulty from routine problems to those that require considerable ingenuity to solve.

The format of the book allows you to solve the problems and check your answers before looking at the solutions. Reading the authors' solutions is instructive, as they provide elegant solutions to the problems and sometimes provide alternative solutions. Also, some of the solutions contain interesting comments about related problems.

Working through this text will help develop your problem solving skills. It could prove useful in preparing for the American Mathematics Competition. However, the format and some of the contents of the test have changed since these examinations were administered. Working through the fifth, sixth, or seventh volumes of this series would be preferable if you are preparing for the AMC. The Contest Problem Book V: American High School Mathematics Examinations (AHSME) / American Invitational Mathematics Examinations (AIME) 1983-1988 (Anneli Lax New Mathematical Library) is the only one that contains problems from the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), for which high scorers on the AMC qualify.

The problems are interesting and give you a good idea of the AHSME and the solutions are generally clear.

These collections of problems are those used in the American High School Mathematics Examinations (AHSME) for the years 1995-2000. Each examination has thirty questions and detailed solutions to the problems are given. I was especially interested in the classification of problems by type and by decade in the preface. From this, you can see the dramatic change in the topics covered on the exams. Probability, statistics and trigonometry problems did not appear on the exams in the decades 1950-59, 1960 - 69 and 1970 - 79. The significant drops in percentage appearing on the exam were in geometry and logarithms.
When I started reading this book, I was solving the problems in my head, but it wasn't long before I grabbed a pad and pen and starting writing out the solutions. While all of the problems are within the grasp of the advanced high school student, some require a clever insight if you want to solve it in a reasonable amount of time. At the end of each chapter, there is a chart listing the percentage of qualifiers who gave that answer to the question. While rare, there are occasions when a wrong answer was given more often than the correct one. It is interesting to note the general decline in the sum of the percentages as you go down the list to later in the test.
This book is the best study material available for people getting ready for a future AHSME exam. I strongly recommend it for all teachers working to prepare their students for the exams. When you look through the problems over the five years, there are some similarities that repeat on a regular basis.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission

This is one of the most used books on our shelf. The kids love to hear it and I love to read it. Anyone who has suffered through unwanted childhood lessons (piano, dance, etc) will relate to the cut-ups predicament.

DOUBLE TWIST finds Laura and Patrick gearing up to compete in an ice-dancing championship in Montreal. This time, they expect a medal. Their excitement overpowers the strenuous workouts, until an accident ruins their plans. When Patrick goes down, his knee prevents him from dancing again, until after the competition. Laura sinks into depression, until she thinks of a brilliant plan to stay in the competition.

During normal skating hours at the rink, Laura spies one boy showing off his footwork. He looks like he has all the right moves, and with a little work, she has a new skating partner. Keeping him as a partner is an entirely different matter. Boys tease him about ice-dancing, but Laura finds a way to make it more appealing. Together Laura and Scott work on a hip-hop ice-dancing routine. The uniqueness of their dancing could ultimately blow up in their faces, but they're willing to work like crazy and have a little fun to try something completely new.

This novel is great fun and will be popular with girls looking for more sport books. The book, set in the U.K., is half-Americanized, making the reader wonder exactly where it is located. At the championship, Scott and Laura are announced as the team from the U.K., but it's never revealed beforehand. Words like Mum and soccer make it a little bit hard for the reader to figure out the setting. However, this slight issue did not take away from the enjoyment of the book.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Rummel

This book is suitable for a teacher who has just started the topic of division with their class. A good resource to base activities on, encourage interest in the topic and to aid understanding.

This book takes you through all of the Fifa soccer teams. It even talks about the teams in depth, like about their past history of goals and victories, and even in losses. It takes you to the best players on those teams and tells the victories or losses that the player had on the team. On the players, it will also tell you all the clubs they were part of and their avarage goals they made in the past. So I think think this book is really good for you if you love a lot of European International Soccer. Even some of it will take you through the Ebglish football scene.