The most destructive force in a math competitor's life is anxiety. When a student sits down for the AMC, they are facing unformulated, highly creative problems that rarely look like standard textbook exercises. If their mind is clouded by the fear of disappointing the adults in their life, their performance will instantly collapse. Anxiety and good performance are entirely incompatible.
Normalize the Test Early and Often
The most common trigger for test-day panic is encountering a problem that looks completely alien to a student's preparation material. The only way to eliminate this fear is through exposure. Register your children for math contests at a young age, even before they fully understand what a math competition is. Crucially, do this with zero pressure. Tell them simply to go in, play around with the information, and try to step-by-step their way through a few puzzles. I know students who were raised this way, and they casually qualified for the AIME in middle school simply because the test environment felt as normal as a Tuesday afternoon.
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