USU students fare well on difficult math exam
On Dec. 7, 2002, six Utah State University students took the William Lowell Putnam Exam, which, according to Time magazine, may be the hardest and most prestigious math test in the world.
The most common score out of 120 points is zero, said Chris Coray, a professor of mathematics. The average score on the exam is one.
Serge Ballif, Robert Berry, Brian Gleason, Nate Jeppson, Karen Perry and Eric Widdison each took the exam. All of the USU students who participated finished in the top half of all who took the test.
The USU team, which consisted of three of the students, ranked 46 out of 476 schools. In the individual competition, Widdison placed 246 of 3,349 students. Harvard University won the competition.
Coray said this shows the strength of the math department.
“We aren’t talking about schools with good football programs,” he said. “They are schools with good academic programs, and we are one of them.”
The exam consists of 12 questions, and participants are given six hours to complete it. The test is designed to measure originality and competence, Coray said. The questions contain advanced mathematical theories and cut across the bounds of various disciplines.
Prior to the test, the students at USU prepare for the exam by doing practice problems from old exams. They hold weekly meetings throughout the semester.
Widdison is a senior majoring in mathematics and electrical engineering. At the same time, he is a graduate student in electrical engineering.
His name will appear in the American Mathematical Monthly in May to recognize his achievement on the test.
For Widdison, the test was a lot of fun and a very rewarding experience. He said the Putnam Exam is a great opportunity for anyone who likes working challenging math problems.
“I’m very pleased that everyone who took it did well,” Widdison said. “They all scored, which is what I personally use to measure my success on the test.”
Perry is a senior in computational math and will be doing undergraduate research in Seattle this summer.
Perry took the test because she enjoys math, and the exam has some fascinating and challenging problems. There are often a couple ways to solve a problem, a hard way and an easier, less obvious way, she said.
“Some problems I don’t have the slightest idea how to do, but after sitting for three hours thinking, I sometimes come up with an idea,” Perry said.
Each question on the exam is worth 10 points. All necessary work must be shown to receive full credit on a problem.
Ballif, a junior majoring in math, got four or five of the questions right, but he said his work was only detailed enough to get credit for 1.2 problems.
“The graders of the Putnam are merciless,” he said.
Gleason, a junior majoring in math and statistics education, said he enjoyed the experience and hopes to do better next year.
The first Putnam Exam was given in 1938. The exam’s Web site said the test came about because of William Lowell Putnam’s conviction of the value of organized team competition in regular college studies.
His widow, Elizabeth Lowell Putnam created the William Lowell Putnam Intercollegiate Memorial Fund in 1927 to finance the competition.
The first competition supported by this fund was actually in English, but switched to math a few years later. In 1935, the exam assumed its present form and was placed under the administration of the Mathematical Association of America, according to the Web site.
For more information on the exam, go to http://math.scu.edu/putnam/