George Mason University

Putnam Exam Study Group

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is North America's premier Mathematics competition for college students. The competition takes place on the first Saturday in December each year and consists of a total of 12 math problems given in morning and afternoon sessions. The exams are taken individually but groups of students can form teams from their university and compete for small amounts of fame and fortune and bragging rights as well. There is a wealth of information available online to help prepare for this competition as well as other regional mathematics competitions as described below.

The 2007 GMU Putnam Participants: Fred Iacoletti, Jonathan Bode, Malick Kebe.

Announcements

This year's Virginia Tech Competition is scheduled for October 27, 9am to 11:30am. Please contact Dan Anderson (danders1@gmu.edu) if you are interested in participating in this contest. It will be held at GMU in S+T I, Room 242 from 9am to 11:30am.-->
This year's Putnam Competition is Saturday, December 1, 2007. The exam is made up of both a morning session from 10am to 1pm and an afternoon session from 3pm to 6pm. It will be held at GMU in S+T I, Room 242.
We are currently having Putnam practice sessions on Friday afternoons at 4:30 (In S+T I, Room 242). These are informal meetings where we get together to work on and discuss past Virginia Tech and Putnam competition problems in order to prepare for this year's competitions. Contact Dan Anderson (danders1@gmu.edu) if you are interested. Below is a tentative list of dates and times but some of these will be subject to change so stay tuned here.

Friday, October 12, 4:30pm-5:30pm.
Friday, October 12, 4:30pm-5:30pm.
Friday, October 12, 4:30pm-5:30pm (look over VT 2006 exam).
Friday, October 19, 4:30pm-5:30pm.
Friday, October 26, 4:30pm-5:30pm.
Friday, November 2, 4:30pm-5:30pm.
Friday, November 9, 4:30pm-5:30pm.
Friday, November 16, 4:30pm-5:30pm.
Friday, November 30, 4:30pm-5:30pm.

Online resources

The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) has an online site below devoted to the Putnam exam and other mathematics competitions. In particular, Putnam exam questions and solutions back to 1985 can be found at the following site.
MAA Online Putnam problems and solutions

The Virginia Tech Math competition is a good warm-up for the Putnam competition.
Virginia Tech Math Competition
Additional links to lecture notes and problems for more Putnam practice!
Notes on Euclidean Geometry by Kiran Kedlaya
Lecture Notes by David Santos
Lecture Notes by William Kahan

Other resources

The American Mathematical Monthly publishes the previous year's Putnam exams, with solutions, each October or November. The last several years can be found in the following issues.

Monthly, 110 (2003), Oct., page 718.
Monthly, 109 (2002), Nov., page 827.
Monthly, 108 (2001), Nov., page 841.
Monthly, 107 (2000), Oct.
Monthly, 106 (1999), Nov., page 842.

Also published by the MAA is The Mathematics Magazine, each issue of which contains a problem section. Each summer, the most recent Putnam exam is also published here, with different solutions. The library also has books on problems and problem solving; in particular, look under those with call numbers beginning QA 43.

Those interested in learning more about these mathematics competitions and forming a group at GMU to meet periodically, study together and compete should contact one of the faculty members listed below.

Prof. Daniel M. Anderson (email: danders1@gmu.edu)

Prof. James Lawrence (email: lawrence@gmu.edu)

danders1@gmu.edu
Last Revised December, 2007