Putnam 2009

Well I’ve taken the Putnam exam for the last time.  I think that I did better than last year (20) but if not then I did just as well.  The highest score I could possibly get is a 40, but I think that a 30 is more realistic.

In the next post I hope to post all the problems from the exam and then solve some of then in the proceeding post.  Though I’ll have solutions, or hints for most of the problems, I actually didn’t think of most of them during the examination.  I guess at this point I’ll tell you which ones I solved, well submitted solutions for at least.  A1, A2, B1, and B5.

Some sad news, I knew the answers to; B2 but didn’t know how to show that my lower bound was in fact correct, B4 but forgot everything I learned in Fourier Series so got stuck on an integral, and A4 and once again I was headed in the right direction but gave up too early.

Regardless I feel pretty good about my performance.  The other team members seemed to all have done at least as good, so we should hopefully place just as high as last year (13 I believe).