Having recently hurtled down memory-lane, and come across something I wanted to share: a journal I wrote to the Oberlin Alumni Magazine about taking the Putnam exam as an undergraduate, which included little weekly blurbs about the process of preparing for a really hard math competition. It originally accompanied this brief article, but the full journal hasn’t been online for a while. Finally, I am posting it, for the joy of all on the Internet, in its original 2008 glory.
The experience earned a young Kuksenok an impressive 18 points, but not until she had experienced six weeks of doubt, anxiety, excitement, and relief, as revealed in a journal she kept while studying for the test. “I suppose I can feel good about embarking on the true path of enlightenment,” she wrote, “but, mostly, I can’t help but be frustrated every time I get a problem almost-almost-almost right.”
Yvonne Gay Fowler, Oberlin Alumni Magazine
- Six Weeks to Go: Let the Games Begin
- Five Weeks to Go: Desensitization Exercises
- Three Weeks to Go: Almost!
- Two Weeks to Go: Why Am I doing this?
- One Week to Go: The Real Deal
- Ready, Set, Go!
- It’s Really Over Now, So Why Can’t We Stop Talking About It
Six Weeks to Go: Let the Games Begin
The problems are only a few statements long, some are illustrated; a dozen fit on a double-sided piece of paper. Fifteen minutes into the practice session, and it becomes very clear that both the demand for paper and the collective frustration level is going to increase dramatically.
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition, a collegiate-level 6-hour exam, is notorious for its difficulty: within the last decade, about half of the median scores for the exam were zero out of 120 possible points. The 12 problems that appear in the exam are humbling. Even a partially correct attempt at a solution feels like a success. This year, I will be taking the Putnam exam for the first time, daunting as it may be after only two-and-a-half semesters in mathematics courses above introductory level calculus.
I am not a competitive individual; I have neither any deep appreciation for nor the drive towards winning. I just like solving problems. Having gone to a computer programming competition every semester at Oberlin, I’ve gotten very fond of problems and puzzles that force an unconventional method of thought. Spring 2009 is the third semester that I have taught the Competitive Computer Programming ExCo, which itself has been a very interesting experience. The ExCo has facilitated, as I had hoped, more localized interest in competitive programming, and more success at competitions. Given my experience with algorithmic problem-solving, I had my eyes and ears peeled for announcements of the Putnam this Fall, as I had glimpsed some of the practice problems over the shoulder of a friend who had taken the exam last year.
As I practice, I hope to gain techniques and experience in the kinds of problems that only tangentially relate to the realm of my curriculum. What makes the exam problems so obviously different from anything I previously encountered in even the most notorious weekly problem sets is their context and purpose. The context of a “normal” problem in a 200-level mathematics class is a section in a chapter, a chapter in a book, a book written for a class. Its purpose is to reiterate the small part of a massive amount of material that was addressed sometime in lecture and to solidify the understanding of some concept.
Every Putnam problem I have so far attempted, on the other hand, has been an elegant statement in and of itself, free of agenda, with the pure purpose of showing off how beautiful and intensely intimidating math can be. It’s kind of like a beauty pageant of symbols and expressions, delicate ideas clad in confounding language, paraded in front of an eager audience.
Five Weeks to Go: Desensitization Exercises
I attend weekly practice sessions held by Professor Michael Henle. The sessions are designed to “desensitize” us by using really, really hard problems. At least we are able to enjoy some delicious, top-notch apple cider!
Accustomed to the clamor of study lounges and computer labs, I was, at first, extremely self-conscious in the penetrating silence of the study session, punctuated by occasional shuffling, erasing, or pouring of apple cider. It’s the sort of feeling produced by excessively loud pencil scratching: what if I’m doing this problem really, really wrong, and my wrongness has somehow manifesting itself in the loudness of my pencil and everyone knows and is laughing at me on the inside?
In a few minutes, though, everyone, myself included, is much too focused on the problems, and the deliciousness of the cider, to really read too much into pencil scratching: let the fun begin!
Three Weeks to Go: Almost!
Each practice session brings me closer and closer to the conclusion that, in fact, I know nothing.
I suppose I can feel good about embarking on the true path of enlightenment; but, mostly, I can’t help but be frustrated every time I get a problem almost-almost-almost right.
Throughout the weeks though, I’ve definitely developed a better way of approaching problems and identifying what I can and simply cannot do. I’ve also seen some really, fantastic proofs.
Two Weeks to Go: Why Am I doing this?
Oberlin students, as far as I have been able to gather, are notorious for getting involved in too many activities and classes. I am no exception.
It’s now that time of the year when everyone, it seems, is inventing hours in the day to finish all those assignments for all those classes and attend all those things they signed up for. I can’t help but be forced to reevaluate my reasons for taking the Putnam exam in the first place, as it’s going to take six hours on one of the busiest (for me) weekends of the year.
I feel a kind of mixture of excitement at a new experience intercepting my busy, but uneventful and predictable, weekend lineup, and fear that I will fail and waste the time I have to take the exam by failing to recognize questions I could handle and spending too much time on problems I know next to nothing about.
Come to think of it, an exam—any exam—is a strange experience. Sure, usually, there’s pressure of grades, GPA, grad school, oh noes! But exams simply allow you to apply everything you’ve learned in a harmless setting. It’s a strictly for-your-information kind of thing; you think to yourself, “are you really all that?” and then this gives you a way to say, “nope, you’re wrong, go take Group Theory.” I think that’s really why I’m taking it—because I can’t evaluate my ability as well in these problems on my own.
One Week to Go: The Real Deal
The Desensitization Exercise: Professor Henle plops the problem packets from prior years on our desks, readying us for the showdown.
This kind of makes me think of the after-school SAT practice sessions in high school, when I tried to take the tests like I would, presumably, at the “real deal,” what with the timing and the artificial pressure, but, obviously, it’s hard to infuse this sort of thing with verisimilitude when I haven’t really experienced the “real deal” in the first place.
Admittedly, though, I’m pretty nervous now. Mostly, I’m afraid of sitting down at the exam and having no clue about any of the problems.
Ready, Set, Go!
The first session is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the second from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
As people file into the exam room in the empty morning building, there’s not much talking. For the first time, I think how cool it is that there’s a room full of people taking the exam on a Saturday morning.
After the first session, everyone discusses what problems they did and how. There’s a mixture of frustration and relief; personally, I was happy to be able to identify several problems to work on, as were several others. Feeling invigorated and fed, we return to the second session. These problems, I find out later, generally seemed even more challenging than those in the morning session.
Afterwards, I don’t feel defeated, only drained of any desire to do homework. I thought I’d some more work today—and I have to—but it’s amazing how mentally exhausting the exam was. On the upside, the Mathematics department has invited all of us to a delicious dinner, at which we merrily continue to discuss the problems, despite the occasional effort to change the topic.
Overall, this Saturday, December 6, feels like one of those fuzzy, productive days. I’m going to need time to recuperate, though.
It’s Really Over Now, So Why Can’t We Stop Talking About It
Three days after the exam, the computer lab still has a migrating problem sheet, and I keep finding the frantic scratches from practice sessions. When I bump into other people who have taken the exam, it’s hard not to stop and discuss which problems we did, how we felt, and, man, was the second part hard or what.
I hear there are unofficial solutions on the Internet, but I can’t bring myself to check them– there’s already the stress of finals and projects and papers. We won’t know the actual results until March, anyway.
Taking the Putnam exam has been such an interesting new experience for me. It’s difficult to explain to people why I spent six hours on a Saturday voluntarily taking an exam instead of writing a required paper; the fact is, though, it was just really, really fun. The practice sessions and the actual exam had, on some level, the kind of appeal to me that, I think, crossword puzzles have to some people. Though maybe I don’t have any rational basis to think that; I’ve never really been a huge fan of crossword puzzles.
I’ve heard talk about a similar (though, perhaps, a little less daunting) examination for the spring students could participate in. Sign me up! For that, and next year’s Putnam!