Printable checklist
Exam day
Everything here is a decision made in advance, so that nothing has to be decided on the day. Print it the week before.
Exam dayAMC 10 Step by Step
Name: Date: September 13, 2026
Exam date: ______________ Start time: __________ Room: ______________
The week before
- Take the last full contest five to seven days out, timed, under exam conditions.
- After it, add every miss to the error log. Do not start new topics.
- Empty the review queue, or get it under five problems.
- Re-read the scoring rules below until the guessing rule is automatic.
- Confirm the date, the start time, and the room with the school or the host site.
- Sleep at the intended time for at least three nights before, not just the last one.
What to bring
- Two or three sharpened pencils, HB or #2.
- A good eraser, separate from the pencils.
- A watch that is silent and has no calculator and no internet.
- The admission or registration details, if the host site asks for them.
- Water and something small to eat before the exam, not during.
What not to bring
- A calculator of any kind. It is not permitted on the AMC 10.
- A phone, a smartwatch, or headphones. Leave them with a parent or in a bag.
- Notes, formula sheets, or graph paper. Scratch work goes on the test booklet.
The morning
- Eat a normal breakfast, the kind eaten on a normal school day.
- Arrive with twenty minutes to spare.
- Do not attempt a hard problem to "warm up". Read the formula sheet once instead, quietly.
- Go to the toilet before the exam starts. It is 75 minutes without a break.
During the exam: the rules decided in advance
- Fill in the answer sheet as each problem is finished, not all at the end.
- Spend no more than four minutes on any one problem on the first pass. Mark it and move on.
- Finish problems 1 through 10 in the first twenty minutes, and check them as they are done.
- Guess only after eliminating at least two choices. Otherwise leave it blank.
- Remember a blank is worth 1.5 and a wrong answer is worth 0. Five confident blanks beat five guesses.
- Reserve the last five minutes to re-read problems 1 through 10, where a careless slip costs the most.
- Do not change an answer at the end unless a definite error is found.
Right after
- Write down, from memory, every problem that felt uncertain. Do this before leaving the room's corridor.
- Enter the answers on the site the same day, while the paper is fresh.
- Do not look up the answer key with other students before recording your own.