Putnam Practice

Meeting: 4pm-5pm Friday September 4, room MSC E306

Welcome to our first meeting! Our meetings will be 4pm Fridays in this room, until the exam itself on Saturday December 5.

We’ll do introductions, and I’ll give general information about the Putnam. In particular the exam format has changed this year, with four sessions instead of two. I’ll go over that, and the likely best strategy.

I’ll distribute copies of the 2025 exam, which should already be familiar to returning students. Solutions are available in today’s directory. I may also distribute the 2026 IMO problems (a little easier), for something less familiar.

We’ll also discuss plans for future meetings. The easiest format is to simply try solving old Putnam problems, perhaps on a theme. But perhaps some of you have better ideas. In particular I wonder whether some public AI agents have become useful as Putnam coaches.

Files in today’s directory, https://cs.emory.edu/~mic/putnam/0904/:

See https://cs.emory.edu/~mic/putnam/ for more Emory information.