Review by Jeorge
From time to time I am hired to write or proofread competition math problems for various math competition leagues (I'm currently in the midst of writing 9 competitions, 11 problems each), so I need to keep some math problem books around, partly to keep my math brain active and partly for inspiration.

Recently I picked up some books of math problems, and found one of them to be quite valuable: The Contest Problem Book V

The Contest Problem Book V contains problems from the AHSME (American High School Mathematics Examination) and the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination) from the years 1983 to 1988. I was in high school during those years, so as I look at both the AHSME and AIME problems, I find myself thinking: I remember doing those competitions!

These are great problems with a lot of variation in difficulty level (try some of the beginning problems in the AHSME competitions, and then compare them to the problems in the AIME competitions!). One thing that the Amazon reviews and information never mentioned was a really interesting section in the middle of the book titled Dropped Problems. These are problems which were written for the AHSME, but were never used, either because they were flawed, or because the solution was "guessable", or for other reasons. There is also a solution section for these problems, with comments about why they weren't used.

That feature alone makes this problem book a unique and fascinating read. Rating by Jeorge