William Lowell
Putnam Undergraduate Mathematics Competition 2016 at Rutgers
See here for information about registering.
Time: 10 AM to 6 PM (with two hour lunch break 1 PM to 3 PM)
Place: Hill 705
If you register for the exam by October 1, you are guaranteed to be able to take it. (Even if you do not register by October 1, you may still be able to take the exam if some registered students do not show up.)
On the day of the exam, please arrive at Hill 705 by 9:50. You should come armed only with pencils and an eraser. You should not bring books, calculators, etc. with you.
The exam consists of two parts (morning and afternoon) with 6 problems in each part. Each problem is worth 10 points for a total of 120 points. The exam is very difficult; typically a score of 20 points (2 problems fully correct) is already good enough to be in the top 20% of exam takers. A score of 40 points will probably put you in the top 5%.
Grading is very strict. There is very little partial credit given. If your solution is not well written you may earn only 1 or 2 points.
Some tips:
·
Concentrate
on getting a few problems fully correct, rather than doing a little on many
problems.
·
The
first problem of each session is usually much easier than the others, but this
does not mean that you should expect to solve it in a few minutes. It may still
take considerable time to solve and write the solution.
·
Leave
some time at the end to carefully proofread and correct whatever solutions you
have done.