Putnam Club Archive
Organizers: Dima Arinkin, Benedek Valko
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 the first Saturday in 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.
This year, the UW is also participating in the Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Contest. This is an individual competition with seven problems in 2.5 hours. Many schools use it as a kind of rehearsal of the Putnam. You kind find more information over here.
This year, the contest is on Saturday, October 26th, 9--11:30. If you want to participate, come to VV B239 15 minutes in advance, so that you have time to fill the form and read the instructions. No calculators/reference tables are allowed.
Fall 2013
The Putnam Club will help you prepare for the exam by practicing on problems from previous years and other olympiad-style problems. This year, the Putnam Club will meet on Wednesdays from 5:00-6:30 PM, beginning on September 11, in room B139 Van Vleck Hall. The meetings will be lead by Prof. Dima Arinkin.
- September 11: Introductory Meeting problems
- September 18: Assorted Problems (by Yihe Dong) problems
- September 25: Combinatorics problems
- October 2: Matrices and Linear Algebra problems
- October 9: Number Theory problems
- October 16: Functions and Calculus problems
Fall 2012
The Putnam Exam will be held on Saturday, December 1, from 9:00 AM - Noon and 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM. We will be holding the exam in room B105 Van Vleck Hall. Please be there at 8:45 AM for pre-exam paperwork.
The Putnam Club will help you prepare for the exam by practicing on problems from previous years and other olympiad-style problems. This year, the Putnam Club will meet on Tuesdays from 5:30-7:00 PM, beginning on September 11, in room B139 Van Vleck Hall. After the first week, problem sets will appear here roughly one week before we discuss them, as well as being handed out in the previous week's meeting. It is not necessary to solve any problems to come to the meeting, but you are encouraged to spend time working on them.
Brian Rice is running the seminar each week unless otherwise noted.
- September 11: Introduction Problems
- September 18: Some Basic Techniques Problems
- September 25: Polynomials and Algebra Problems
- October 2: Number Theory Problems
- October 9: Calculus Problems
- October 16: Games and Algorithms Problems
- October 23: Combinatorics Problems
- October 30: Probability Problems
- November 6: Linear Algebra Problems
- November 13: Grab Bag Problems
- November 27: Grab Bag 2 Problems
Fall 2011
- 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
- November 9: Linear and Abstract Algebra (Brian Rice) Problems
- November 16: Mock Putnam Problems, Solutions