Putnam Training Sessions at Amherst College


The Putnam Competition is a national mathematics exam for undergraduate students, traditionally during the first Saturday of December. Due to COVID-19, the 81th Putnam Competition has been postponed until February 20th, 2021. You can find more details about the format of the competition this year here.

It is both a challenging and fun exam, in which you will practice your problem-solving and proof-writing skills. Most of the problems require basic calculus and algebra knowledge, so first-year students are encouraged to participate.

Putnam sessions are an informal and friendly chance to meet other students, and talk about problem solving. Typically we will share some problems in advance to think about, we will have a focused discussion at the beginning of the session and then we will discuss some of the problems together and have students present solutions. The meetings will be on Zoom.

If you are interested, please fill out this survey to help coordinate the weekly virtual meetings and the ways in which we will communicate the problems and relevant information about the competition:

Putnam 2020 Google Survey

Here is the Slack channel of the sessions:

Putnam Slack Channel




Please reach out to me (Ivan Contreras: icontreraspalacios@amherst.edu) if you have any questions.

Also, spread the word to any of your peers who might be interested.


We hope to see you at the training sessions!

Here is the Zoom link for all the meetings:

https://amherstcollege.zoom.us/j/98192991843



  • Session 1: Thursday, August 27 (6:00-7:30 PM): The Pigeonhole Principle

  • Session 2: Tuesday, September 1 (5:00-6:30 PM): Mathematical Induction

  • Session 3: Thursday, September 10 (6:00-7:30 PM): Calculus

  • Session 4: Thursday, September 17 (Note change of date, Math Colloquium on Sept. 15) (6:00-7:30 PM): Inequalities

  • Session 5: Thursday, September 24 (6:00-7:30 PM): Geometry

  • Session 6: Thursday, October 1 (Note change of date, Math Colloquium on Sept. 29) (6:00-7:30 PM): Matrices

  • Session 7: Thursday, October 8 (6:00-7:30 PM) : Combinatorics

  • Session 8: Tuesday, October 13 (5:00-6:30 PM): Number Theory

  • Session 9: Thursday, October 22 (6:00-7:30 PM): Probability

  • Session 10: Tuesday, October 27 (5:00-6:30 PM): Algebra

  • Session 11: Thursday, November 5 (6:00-7:30 PM): Complex Numbers

  • Session 12: Tuesday, November 10 (5:00-6:30 PM): Generating Functions

  • Session 13: Thursday, February 18 (6:00-7:30 PM): Favorites







Extras:


Resources

The following are a great source of practice problems, tools and strategies for the Putnam Competition: