Putnam preparation

See here for general information about Putnam at UCLA. See also the Putnam rules and the official website.

The Putnam mathematical competition, organized by the Mathematical Association of America, takes place on the first Saturday in December. The examination consists of a morning session (08:00-11:00) and an afternoon session (13:00-16:00) with a 2 hour break in between. For Putnam 2024, the exam will take place on 2024-12-07 08:00-16:00 at MS 6627.

The best preparation for the Putnam competition is going over the problems from previous years. Problems (with solutions) can be found on Kiran Kedlaya's archive. A good strategy is to try each problem for at most 1 hour, and then look up the solutions, and then try to remember the ideas and tricks from the solutions for subsequent problems. The problems are generally ordered according to difficulty (A1, B1 are the easiest, A6, B6 are the hardest), so for practice, first do all the easy problems, and then move on to the harder problems.

There are also four published books, containing all past problems up to 2016. In the books the problems are discussed in detail, and sometimes given multiple solutions:

• The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition: Problems and Solutions: 1938-1964, by A.M.Gleason, R.E.Greenwood, L.M.Kelly, MAA (1980).
• The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition : Problems and Solutions 1965-1984 (MAA Problem Book Series) by Gerald L. Alexanderson, MAA (1985).
• The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition 1985-2000: Problems, Solutions, and Commentary (MAA Problem Book Series) by Kiran S. Kedlaya, Bjorn Poonen, Ravi Vakil, MAA (2002).
• The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition 2001-2016: Problems, Solutions, and Commentary (MAA Problem Book Series) by Kiran S. Kedlaya, Daniel M. Kane, Jonathan M. Kane, Evan M. O’Dorney, MAA (2020).

Other recommended books are:

• Problem solving through problems, by Loren Larson. Springer (1992).
• Putnam and beyond, by Titu Andreescu and Razvan Gelca. Springer (2007).
• A problem seminar, by Donald J. Newman. Springer (1982).
• Problems from the book, by Titu Andreescu and Gabriel Dospinescu. XYZ Press (2010).
• Problems in real analysis: advanced calculus on the real axis, by Teodora-Liliana Radulescu, Vicentiu D. Radulescu and Titu Andreescu. Springer (2009).
• Contests in higher mathematics. Miklos Schweitzer Competitions 1962--1991. Edited by Gabor J. Szekely. Problem Books in Mathematics. Springer-Verlag, New York (1996).
• Mathematical morsels by Ross Honsberger. The Mathematical Association of America (1978).
• The USSR Olympiad problem book by D. O. Shklarsky, N. N. Chentzov and I. M. Yaglom. W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco and London (1962).
• Generatingfunctionology, by Herbert S. Wilf, available online. A. K. Peters (2006).
• Problem-Solving Strategies, by Arthur Engel. Springer (1998).
• 102 Combinatorial Problems, by Titu Andreescu, Zuming Feng. Birkhauser, Boston (2002).
• 104 Number Theory Problems: From the Training of the USA IMO Team, by Titu Andreescu et al. Birkhauser, Boston (2006).

In addition, various universitites maintain web sites with more resources for Putnam preparation, including practice problems. See for example the sites at Stanford, Northwestern.