Putnam Club Archive

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Organizers: Dima Arinkin, Mihaela Ifrim, Chanwoo kim, Botong Wang

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.

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 for the Putnam. You can find more information over here.

We also hold our own UW Madison Undergraduate Math Competition in the spring; for this academic year, it is tentatively scheduled in April 2019.


Fall 2019

The Putnam Club will help you prepare for the exam by practicing on problems from previous years and other olympiad-style problems. The meeting time is 5pm on Wednesdays in VV B139. The first meeting will be on the 25th of September in Van Vleck hall, room B139.

Spring 2019

The Putnam Club will help you prepare for the exam by practicing on problems from previous years and other olympiad-style problems. The meeting time is 5pm on Wednesdays in VV B139. The first meeting will be on the 6th of February in Van Vleck hall, room B139.

! Important announcement: We will begin preparing you for the Putnam exam earlier this year. The material covered will be presented gradually. More details will be explained to you during your first meeting of this semester (Feb 6th). We put together a Piazza account that will help the participants to discuss and collaborate with their pairs. Here is the link you need to access in order to register for this "class": piazza.com/wisc/fall2018/putnam2018 . Our intervention on Piazza will be minimal (some of the instructors will, from time to time, visit the piazza questions and provide some help). Also, based on your requests, we have decided to structure our meetings in a way that will provide more insight on methods and certain tricks that are very often used in this type of math competitions. The book we will mainly use as a guide in preparing our meetings is: "Putnam and Beyond" by Razvan Gelca and Titu Andreescu.

If this material is completely new to you then read through the definitions in the first section and try the interspersed exercises which are direct applications of the definitions. If you are familiar with the basic material then review the problem solving strategies and the example problems which directly utilize the techniques. Finally, if you are a veteran, go ahead and jump right to the exercises!

  • February 27: Alex: Review results from 2/20. Bring written solutions and/or be prepared to present your
  • March 6th: Mihaela
  • March 13: Mihaela

etc.

Fall 2018

The Putnam Club will help you prepare for the exam by practicing on problems from previous years and other olympiad-style problems. The meeting time is 5pm on Wednesdays in VV B139. The first meeting will be on the 26th of September in Van Vleck hall, room B139.

! Important announcement: We put together a Piazza account that will help the participants to discuss and collaborate with their pairs. Here is the link you need to access in order to register for this "class": piazza.com/wisc/fall2018/putnam2018 . Our intervention on Piazza will be minimal (some of the instructors will, from time to time, visit the piazza questions and provide some help). Also, based on your requests, we have decided to structure our meetings in a way that will provide more insight on methods and certain tricks that are very often used in this type of math competitions. The book we will mainly use as a guide in preparing our meetings is: "Putnam and Beyond" by Razvan Gelca and Titu Andreescu.


  • September 26: topic Introductory meeting by Mihaela Ifrim. We covered only the first 3 problems. I encourage you to work out all the problems!
  • October 27: Virginia Tech Math Contest: 9-11:30am in VV B115.
  • November 21: No meeting: Happy Thanksgiving!
  • December 1: Putnam Competition! Starts at 9am!!!! The competition will take place December 1st 2018 (Saturday December 1st). The competition is administered in two sessions (A and B) on the same day, December 1st! Session A will start at 9 am and it will end at 12pm, and Session B will start at 2pm and it will end at 5pm. You should arrive at least 10 minutes prior to each session. You should bring your own pencils and pens (blue or black ink are permitted). Number 2 pencils with erasers will be needed to complete the identification forms. Erasers are also permitted, but nothing else will not be allowed in the exam room. I plan on bringing 20 such no 2 pencils. The exam room is B239 which is a class room located in Van Vleck Hall, at the level B2. Thank you all for participating and see you all there! If you have friends that would like to take the exam please encourage them to do so.

Spring 2018

The Putnam Club does not meet in the spring, but we had the fourth annual UW Undergraduate Math Competition on April 24th, 2018, 5:30-8pm in VV B239.

Fall 2017

The Putnam Club will help you prepare for the exam by practicing on problems from previous years and other olympiad-style problems. The meeting time is 5pm on Wednesdays in VV B139.

Spring 2016

The Putnam Club does not meet in the spring, but we had the third annual UW Undergraduate Math Competition on April 19th, 2017.

Fall 2016

Spring 2016

The Putnam Club does not meet in the spring, but we had the second annual UW Undergraduate Math Competition on April 12th, 2016.

Fall 2015

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Spring 2015

The Putnam Club does not meet in the spring, but we had our first UW Undergraduate Math Competition!

Fall 2014

Fall 2013

Fall 2012

Fall 2011

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