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Putnam Competition
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2012 Freshman Prize Information
2012 Rochester Olympiad Information
Announcements
The 2011 Putnam is Saturday Dec 3 in Malott 251.
Please come by 9:45 AM for the first (10AM - 1PM) session. The second exam session is from 3PM to 6PM.
We'll serve a pizza lunch in between.
The last of our weekly Wed. practice sessions
in the Fall of 2011 will be at 5:00 pm 11/30 in the Malott fifth floor lounge.
We'll work on a collection of selected easier Putnam problems at the Nov. 30 session.
- Some with possibly instructive hints.
- Some because of the interest in their methods.
- Some just to give you a feel for how easier Putnam problems look.
- (Easier refers here to what percentage (usually >=75) of the top 200
got them right. So not THAT easy...)
This year's practice sessions have been organized by Prof. Hubbard and Dr. Back.Topics listed below:
- Sep. 28 at 5pm: Introduction and Fun Problems.
- Oct. 5 at 4:45pm: Number Theory. (Pages 245-279 of P&B + handout from first session.)
- Oct. 12 at 4:45pm: Differential Equations. (Pages 191-200 of P&B + handout from first session.)
- Oct. 19 at 4:45pm: Inequalities. (Pages 25-45, 142-147, 156-159 of P&B + handout from first session.)
- Oct. 26 at 5pm: Linear Algebra/Algebra. (Pages 61-96 of P&B)
- Nov 2 at 4:45pm: Sequences/Continuity/Differentiation. (Pages 97-124, 125-137, 159-178 of P&B)
- Nov 9 at 4:45pm: Combinatorics. (Pages 281-310, 1-24 of P&B)
- Nov 16 at 4:45pm: Polynomials/Integration.
- Nov 30 at 5pm: Selected Easier Problems
A very nice Putnam preparation book is
Putnam and Beyond
by Razvan Gelca and Titu
Andreescu. On campus, just clicking the above link will get you to
the book. Off campus, the following webpages from the Cornell library
explain how Cornell Community members can access the book as well:
Other good problem books available this way as well as information
about the whole range of newly accessible materials are below:
Many of our practice sessions this year will be
coordinated with sections from Putnam and Beyond. It can take a long
time to work through all the problems in even one section of this
book. So we will
sometimes be providing some guides for those who want to spend
a more modest amount of time on this.
Practice Putnam Exam 2010
Practice Putnam Exam 2008
2011's Putnam practices will be organized by
Prof. Hubbard and Dr. Back.
Last Update: November 30, 2011
E-mail to
putnam@math.cornell.edu
is one way to be added to our
Putnam preparation mailing list and registered for the exam.
- The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition problems,solutions, and commentary : 1985-2000
- Kiran S. Kedlaya, Bjorn
Poonen, Ravi Vakil.
- The William Lowell Putnam mathematical competition :
problems and solutions, 1938-1964
- A.M. Gleason, R.E. Greenwood, L.M. Kelly.
- The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition : problems
and solutions, 1965-1984
- Gerald L. Alexanderson, Leonard
F. Klosinski, Loren C. Larson.
- Problem solving through problems
- Loren C. Larson.
- Problem-solving strategies
- Arthur Engel.
- Polynomials
- E.J. Barbeau.
- The Cauchy-Schwarz master class : an introduction to the art of
mathematical inequalities
- J. Michael Steele.
- Geometric problems on maxima and minima
- Titu Andreescu, Oleg
Mushkarov, Luchezar Stoyanov.
- 104 Number theory problems : from the training of the USA IMO
team
- Titu Andreescu, Dorin Andrica, Zuming Feng.
- 102 combinatorial problems : from the training of the USA IMO
team
- Titu Andreescu, Zuming Feng.
- Index to mathematical problems, 1975-1979
- edited by Stanley
Rabinowitz and Mark Bowron.
- Index to mathematical problems, 1980-1984
- edited by Stanley
Rabinowitz.
One of the most beautiful Putnam preparation books is the 1985-2000 collection
by Kiran S. Kedlaya, Bjorn Poonen, and Ravi Vakil. Available from the
MAA
or e.g. Amazon.
Older Materials
Some Resources
- William Lowell Putnam Competition Archive.
- Excellent source for solutions 1995-present.
- John Scholes Putnam Problems
- Huge and amazingly complete, but with rephrasings due to copyright needs, and often brief solutions.
- (Original Link no longer working?)
- Wayback Machine with Archives of the Web from the Past
- John Scholes IMO site.
- International Math Olympiad Problems are sometimes at a similar level to Putnam ones.
- (Link no longer working?)
- Dave Rusin's Putnam Page
- Official Awards Site
- Google Problem Archives Pointers
- Official Website for Putnam Competition
- American Mathematical Monthly via JSTOR
- Archives here contain annual writeups (e.g. Oct. 85-87, 89, 93-98) of the competition. More months listed here.
- Prof. Kahan's Berkeley Preparation Notes
- Many years worth in one place.
- International Mathematics Competition
for University Students
- Canadian IMO Site
- IMO Compendium
- IMO Compendium Olympiad Training Materials
- Putnam Fellow
- from the Wikipedia. Includes some interesting historical information.
- E-mail to
- putnam@math.cornell.edu
- will be forwarded to this year's local organizers.
(John Hubbard, Allen Back)
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