Word: maths
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Each of the Putnam’s two sections has six math problems, with full credit for a problem netting ten points. While the number of problems may seem low to Harvard students used to taking SATs and Math 21a examinations, the majority of the test-takers don’t even receive full credit for a single problem. According to Ravi Vakil, co-author of a book on the competition from 1985-2000 and the Putnam coordinator at Stanford, the median score is usually zero or one. “Keeping in mind that the people taking the Putnam...
...typical Harvard student is used to acing examinations, so what kind of student puts himself (and it’s usually a him) through the agony of receiving a worse-than-failing score? Every participant FM spoke with was a math contest veteran from high school, some even at national and international levels...
...Schwartz ’04, a two-time Putnam Fellow from the suburbs of Philadelphia, came to Harvard for this very reason. “I knew I wanted to come since ninth grade,” Schwartz says. “It has the best undergraduate math in the country...Because the students in the class are at a high level, the students can be taught at a higher level...
Still, the test itself in recent years has had less and less to do with math department curriculum. According to Emeritus Professor of Mathematics Andrew Gleason, a three-time winner of the Putnam and co-author of a book on the competition, the material on the examination has gotten more abstract, moving away from the material directly covered in college classes...
Basketball certainly seems peripherally related, if at all, to math. However, the first question on the second half of this year’s exam dealt with basketball and made a sly reference to the free throw percentage of a certain L.A. Lakers center. Test-takers had to calculate the probability of “Shanille O’Keal” making 50 out of 100 given specific circumstances. “A bunch of people laughed when we started that part of the test,” says Gabriel D. Carroll ’05, three-time Putnam...