For those brave souls that are taking the Putnam Exam this year, make sure you check out the resources that we have been creating here in the department.

1. Putnam Preparation give you a general overview of what to expect on the exam, as well as a plan for getting ready over the next two months. There is a guide to some helpful resources, and you can check out the questions that were on last year's exam.
2. Putnam Practice I is the first of several planned exercise sets focusing on topics that typically appear on the exam. It includes a brief review of some relevant facts as well as a selection of practice problems. There are several "warm-up" exercises included in the set. Thus, everybody should be able to solve at least some of the problems. An important part of your preparation is solving problems regularly, and writing up clear, complete solutions.

Even though some of the problems on the practice sheets are easier than those you will face on the Putnam, do not underestimate the value of working on them. The most important thing a student can take from their exam preparation is a willingness to work on an exercise that does not contain explicit instructions about how to go about solving them.

To clarify, most students are really good at what might be called "exercises." These are routine applications of techniques that students have learned. An exercise then is something like "Differentiate f(x)=... ." While these kinds of exercises are important for mastering basic skills, they are not that helpful for intellectual development. It is much better to tackle a problem that forces you to think about the methods and tools you know, decide which ones might be applicable, propose a solution, and finally check if what you have really does answer the problem. This kind of work is muck more challenging to be sure, but I believe it is the best way to become stronger in mathematics.