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 (which was held on October 26th). 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 will find more information over here.
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
- September 18: Assorted Problems (by Yihe Dong)
- September 25: Combinatorics
- October 2: Matrices and Linear Algebra
- October 9: Number Theory
- October 16: Functions and Calculus
- October 23: Polynomials
- October 26: Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Contest
- October 30: Problems from this year's Virginia Tech contest
- November 6: Games
- November 13: Pigeonhole principle
- November 20: TBA
- November 27: No meeting (Thanksgiving)
- December 4: TBA
- December 7: Putnam competition Morning session: 9am-12pm, afternoon session: 2-5pm in VV B239.
Fall 2012
- 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