U of I Math Contests Webpage
www.math.illinois.edu/contests.html
News and Announcements
[To receive news and announcements about contest activities at the U of
I, sign up for the Putnam Newsletter.]
-
Poster: Overview of Math Contest Activities.
- 2012 U of I Undergraduate Math Contest.
This year's U of I Undergraduate Mathematics Contest will be held on
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 10 am - 1 pm, in Room 245 Altgeld Hall.
This contest is intended as a local and easier version of the Putnam
Competition and is open to all UIUC undergraduates. Preregistration
is not required - just show up at the above place and time.
Top scorers will receive monetary awards and be recognized at the
Awards Ceremony of the Mathematics Department. See
below for more about this contest, and
links to problems and solutions of past contests.
- 2011 Putnam Wrapup.
The 2011 Putnam Contest took place Saturday, December 3, 2011.
27 U of I students participated, a new record for local
participation! Results will be available in late March 2012. Problems
and unofficial solutions can be found at the
AMC Putnam Archive.
- [10/2/2011]
U of I Fall Math Contest Results.
The winner of the inaugural U of I Freshman Math Contest, held Sept. 26,
2011, was Ding Zhang. Fan Fei and Robert Weber
received an Honorable Mention for placing second and third.
Meng Guo and Wenmian Hua were the co-winners of the
U of I Mock Putnam Exam, which was held Sept. 28, 2011.
Honorable Mention went to the third place finisher, Danyang Zhuo.
See the above link for more information, contest problems and solutions.
- [3/28/11] Putnam Results.
Results of the 2010 Putnam Contest are in! The top local participants
were Justin Kopinsky and Yi-Wei Chan who placed in the top
1.5 percent nationwide and earned an Honorable Mention for their
performance. The U of I Putnam team placed 17th, one spot better than
last year's 18th place and its highest rank since 2002. For more
information click on the above link.
- [3/12/11]
Results of the 2011
U of I Undergraduate Math Contest.
The 2011 U of I Undergraduate Math Contest was held March 5, 2011. The
winners, and recipients of the $300 first prize, were Brian Freidin and
and Danyang Zhuo. See the above link for more information and
additional results. Contest problems and solutions are available at the
following links:
The William Lowell Putnam Competition
The William
Lowell Putnam Competition is an
annual student math competition sponsored by the
Mathematical Association
of America. More than 2000 students
from colleges and universities in the United States and Canada
participate in this contest each year.
The Putnam competition is held simultaneously at participating universities,
usually on the first Saturday of December.
The Putnam competition consists of a morning session and an afternoon
session of three hours each. In each session, six problems are
to be solved. The problems are graded on a 0 - 10 point scale, for a
maximal score of 120 points.
The problems are
challenging and require considerable ingenuity and insight,
but little technical knowledge
beyond high school mathematics. It is extremely rare that a contestant
solves all 12 problems. For example,
in the 1996 Putnam competition, the highest score was
98 points, and a score of 10 (the equivalent
of a single problem solved correctly)
would have placed a contestant among the top third of all
2400 participants!
The highest ranking participants from the UIUC in recent years have
earned scores in the 40 - 60 point range and
ranked in the top 100.
The Putnam competition is open to all
full time undergraduate students; for details on how to enter click on
the link below.
In addition to the individual competition, there is also a team
competition among participating colleges. The team rank of a college
is determined by the scores of three participants from that college
who have to be named in advance.
The team members will, of course, still be ranked as individual
contestants. The 25 highest scoring individuals and the five
highest scoring teams receive
monetary awards. The UIUC team has not made
it into the money ranks in recent history,
but there is always time for a first! (The highest rank for the UIUC
team in the past 20 years was 8th.)
The U of I Mock Putnam Exam is a local version of the Putnam
Exam, held each year in early fall. It is similar in format and
content to the Putnam competition, but the problems are somewhat
easier. The Mock Putnam Exam serves as a practice
test for the Putnam Exam, and a key tool in the selection of the U
of I Putnam Team. The winner will be designated "U of I Mock
Putnam champion". A prize purse of up to $300 is available to the
top scorer(s).
Formerly known as the "Orange and Blue Contest", the U of I
Undergraduate Math Contest is a locally organized problems contest,
held in the latter part of the Spring semester.
The highest ranking participants will receives prizes
up to $300 and be recognized at the departmental awards ceremony.
The U of I Putnam Newsletter is an
email newsletter containing announcements about
the Putnam competition and other
contest-related activities at the U of I. The mailing list for the
newsletter is maintained by Professor Hildebrand;
to be put on this mailing list, send an email to ajh@illinois.edu
with your email address (i.e., NetID) at illinois.edu.
Note: This is a local newsletter, with announcements of
local events and activities that would be of little interest
to those not at the U of I. To keep the mailing list manageable, it
is restricted to U of I students and faculty, and an illinois.edu address
is required.
Last modified: Thu 09 Feb 2012 01:20:23 PM CST
A.J. Hildebrand