Putnam Club Archive

Putnam Club - Fall 2011

Organizers: Andrei Caldararu, Uri Andrews, Brian Rice

The Putnam Exam, offered by the Mathematical Association of America, is the premier American math competition for undergraduate students. It is given each year on a Saturday in early December. The exam consists of 12 problems, 6 in the 3 hour morning session and 6 in the 3 hour afternoon session. Each problem is worth 10 points, so the maximum score is 120. National winners usually get around 100 points. The median score is generally around 0-2 points. This is a difficult exam with many interesting and fun problems.

Old exams and more information on the Putnam competition.

The Putnam Club will help you prepare for the exam by practicing on problems from previous years and other olympiad-style problems. We will meet on Wednesdays 4:30-5:30 in room B219 Van Vleck.

• September 21: Pigeonhole Principle (Brian Rice) Problems
• September 28: Introduction to Counting (Brian Rice) Problems
• October 5: Elementary Number Theory (Brian Rice) Problems, Problems (Hardcore)
• October 12: Polynomials (Brian Rice) Problems, Problems (Hardcore)
• October 19: A Grab Bag of Discrete Math (Brian Rice) Problems
• October 26: Calculus, Week 1 (Brian Rice) Problems
• November 2: Calculus, Week 2 (Brian Rice) Problems

ANNOUNCEMENT: We will be holding a Mock Putnam exam to help us determine the official UW-Madison team. This exam will be on Wednesday, November 16 from 4:30-7:00 PM (you can bring food if you don't want to eat before or after). If you would like to be considered for the team but can't make this time, please email Brian Rice or Uri Andrews so we can figure out about an alternate time.