Register for the Putnam Competition

Sept. 12, 2019
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This year's William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition will be on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2019.

There will be two sessions: 9 a.m. to noon and 2-5 p.m. You should try your best to sit both sessions, while you may take part in only one session as well.

The room for the competition is LH3058.

Registration

To register for the competition, email Associate Professor Shengda Hu by noon on Friday, Sept. 27, 2019.

Training Sessions

When a session is cancelled due to the availability of an instructor leading it, during the corresponding allotted time, you may drop by LH3053, with your questions, and I am willing to work with you on them (with absolutely no guarantee that the problems will be solved in the end).

You don't have to register to attend the training sessions. On the other hand, if you do prepare to participate in the Putnam Competition, then you should register, as it will be very helpful for your preparation.

To register for the training sessions, you will need to fill out the Putnam Training Session Registration Form. This form will be available soon, while in the mean time, please email your registration information to shu@wlu.ca or pzhang@wlu.ca by NOON on Friday Sept. 27, 2019, with the following information:

  • Student ID
  • Preference of time: Tuesdays 4:00 - 5:00pm or Thursdays 4:00 - 5:00pm
  • Number of times participated in the Putnam Competition
  • Previous experience in math competitions
  • If there are any sessions that you already know you cannot attend at your preferred time
  • Are you going to participate in the Putnam Competition this year

Note that the training sessions are also contingent on the availability of instructors to lead them, and some or all of them may be cancelled for this reason.

Schedule

The training sessions are expected to be on Tuesdays or Thursdays, 4-5 p.m. in room LH3053, in the weeks indicated below. The exact dates and room will be updated once we get the preferences from the participants and instructors.

The sessions will start in the week of September 30th, 2019 and the last session will be in the week of December 2nd, 2019. There is no session in the reading week of Oct. 15, 2019.

If a student is interested in participating in the training sessions, s/he should send email to shu@wlu.ca or pzhang@wlu.ca by NOON on Friday Sept. 27, 2019.

The following is a tentative (meaning the order or content of the sessions might change) list of sessions. The topics will roughly follow the book Putnam and Beyond, which can be downloaded in its entirety. Depending on the time available, not all topics will be covered.

To get the most out of these sessions, please prepare for the topics that will be covered before coming to them, and work as many problems as possible afterwards. Reading the examples and trying some of the problems would be a good way to prepare. You need to understand your weakness in order to get stronger.

  • Oct. 1st: Introduction, problems from past competitions, geometry and trigonometry.
    • Instructor: Professor Emeritus Edward Wang
  • Oct. 8th: Algebra: identities and inequalities, polynomials.
    • Instructor: Cancelled. S. Hu will be in LH3053 between 4:00pm and 5:00pm
  • Week of Oct. 14: Fall Reading Week, no session.
  • Oct. 22nd: Real analysis: limits and continuity.
    • Instructor: Cancelled. S. Hu will be in LH3053 between 4:00pm and 5:00pm
  • Oct. 29th: Sequences and series.
    • Instructor: Cancelled. S. Hu will be in LH3053 between 4:00pm and 5:00pm
  • Nov. 5th: Number Theory, Problems from past competitions
    • Instructor: Professor Emeritus Edward Wang
  • Nov. 12th: Algebra: Linear algebra, matrix operations, groups.
    • Instructor: Professor Kaiming Zhao
  • Nov. 19th: Real analysis: derivatives and integrals, equations with functions as unknowns.
    • Instructor: Cancelled. S. Hu has other appointment and cannot be in LH3053
  • Nov. 26th: Real analysis: multivariable differential and integral calculus.
    • Instructor: Cancelled. S. Hu will be in LH3053 between 4:00pm and 5:00pm
  • Dec. 3rd: Combinatorics: combinatorial arguments, binomial coefficients and counting methods.
    • Instructor: Cancelled. S. Hu has other appointment and cannot be in LH3053
  • Dec. 7th (Saturday): Competition! In Room LH3058

Resources

Putnam at Other Places (and Other Times)

Please report any broken links to shu@wlu.ca.