I got a 3!!!

[dag12]

Originally Posted by Guest15937

And here I am, thinking the AIME is hard...

Teehee, the AIME is easy enough to get 12+ on if your practice and look at all the past questions.
They become really patterned, especially combinatorics or number theory problems. I always did suck at geometry problems though.
Take a look at aosp and practice, practice, practice!

[iironiic]

Haha we'd be extremely lucky to have a Putnam Fellow in our school. I also wished I didn't slack too much on math back in high school, because it would've helped me in the long run. Oh well haha.

[qqwref]

Not bad. The Putnam this year was brutal, apparently the top 200 cutoff was 13 points this time and 31 in 2010. I personally got a 52 (yay top 25), but I do have a lot of experience with this kinda stuff, and I'd say you should be happy with your result.

[Vanilla Mnm]

Originally Posted by iironiic

Here was this year's (technically 2011's) exam:

http://amc.maa.org/a-activities/a7-p.../-pdf/2011.pdf

I was really confident with A4 and B2 since I have the right answers and am confident with my proofs. I guess it was not so convincing to the graders haha.

I read one of the questions & got a headache.

[robertsona]

yeah what the hell is all this

[igotrhythm]

Originally Posted by Bluearrowll

The 50th percentile means you placed in the top 50% of the people who took the test. the 33rd percentile means you placed in the top 33% of the people who took the test. Therefore, being in the top half to the top third is in fact an improvement.

Um, I thought that 33rd percentile means you were better than 33% of the other test takers. Still, I know very well the brain-frazzling that comes with a mental workout half as intense as this.

Very good job not goose-egging (and fixing that error because lol didn't read), Wilson!

[Vanilla Mnm]

33rd Percentile means you finished better than 33% of people who took the test.

[dragonmegaXX]

Do you get a new car for winning?

[Breakdown16]

http://math.scu.edu/putnam/prizecJan.html

Some pretty sweet cash prizes, I have to admit.

[Netjet!]

Wow. That'd be cool to win :O Nice job too!

[Guest15937]

I looked at the test and (given that the test is six hours long) I might actually have been able to crack A1. (At least I have a clue what it's saying...unlike half the questions :P)

(goes back to reviewing AIME topics)

[25thhour]

Wtf? If I ever got a test like that I'd kill myself

[Patashu]

I would need to study so much before I even thought about taking one of these, and I consider myself mathematically skilled

[Thatskier]

This doesn't make me feel stupid.

It makes me not understand the world.

[hi19hi19]

A few years ago I got 1 point on the Putnam, I felt like such a badass.

I don't like these kinds of long mathematics tests, I have lots of trouble focusing for that long x_x
The AIME was okay, I did alright on that, but at higher levels my mind just wanders too much, real ADD kid

[Reincarnate]

I never took AIME/Putnam/etc because my high school sucked (I had never even heard of the Putnam until I had already gotten into college) but that shit def. looks hardasfuc.

EDIT: Actually, looking at this 2011 exam, this doesn't look horrible (though in HS I would have had a very different opinion). It's basically like having one shot at solving a couple tough conceptual PE problems and getting them all right. Incredibly hard, still.

[iironiic]

Originally Posted by qqwref

Not bad. The Putnam this year was brutal, apparently the top 200 cutoff was 13 points this time and 31 in 2010. I personally got a 52 (yay top 25), but I do have a lot of experience with this kinda stuff, and I'd say you should be happy with your result.

Thanks! (: I did work really hard, so I am proud of that! It just seems like a bad score compared to my 10 last year haha! Congrats to you too! (:

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

I never took AIME/Putnam/etc because my high school sucked (I had never even heard of the Putnam until I had already gotten into college) but that shit def. looks hardasfuc.

I took the AIME at my senior year because I never heard of it until then. I wish my math teachers were able to inform me about these opportunities, but fortunately I did my research just in time haha!

I am also interested to see how the graders grade the problems so I can learn from my mistakes. Too bad I won't ever find that out haha!

[Reincarnate]

Still, though, gettin' 3 like a baws -- congrats.

[hi19hi19]

Being able to even understand some of the problems is an accomplishment tbh

[Cavernio]

Mathematical proofs made no sense to me until I took discrete structures, a computer science course. Not that I remember what I learned in the class now, but I remember it being so simple once it was actually taught, got an easy A in the class. It was all such simple, logical, steps. But yet I remember having to memorize stupid simple proofs for first year calculus years earlier because I it just didn't make any sense.
There's totally methodology for proving things, and I'm not sure it's taught very well even at the higher level. Certainly odd that they only teach it long after you've been immersed in math for 12-14 years. It really felt to me like I was just supposed to 'pick up' mathematical proofs at some point, or that you just had to understand the logic behind it when I was never really even taught what tenets of math 'just are' versus 'what needs to be proven' in the first place.