The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is the largest and best-known individual math competition for undergraduates in Canada and the United States. It takes place this year on Saturday December 2, in two three-hour halves. York students will write it at York. For more background, see
The Department of Mathematics and Statistics runs training sessions each fall to help students prepare for the event by sharpening their problem-solving skills. These sessions are also a good opportunity for people who enjoy problem solving to get together on a regular basis. In 2023, they will be organized by Professor Mohamed Omar (omarmo@yorku.ca).
Here is an updated list of practice problems that the training sessions worked on in Fall 2022, when I organized them.
Here is a link to a list from Northwestern University of some "easy" Putnam problems --- that is, relatively easy compared to other Putnam problems! They are still challenging. Find some that interest you, and work on them for a while. Don't try to look up answers yet ... at least not until November. We can discuss these during our meetings.
There are also a lot of problems and math summaries arranged by math topic on the Putnam page of Professor Skoufranis, who organized these sessions in 2021.
Neal Madras, former York Putnam Supervisor (2022)
madras@yorku.ca
Professor of Mathematics and Statistics
S616 Ross
York University
