Although the Putnam Mathematics Competition exam is extremely difficult -- the median grade is usually zero out of 120 -- the Dartmouth Classes of 2009 and 2010 have experienced a surge in interest and mathematical ability, according to Vedant Mehra '07, a Dartmouth Math Society member.
The College continued preparing students for the six-hour exam on Wednesday during one of several training sessions usually held in Carson 60.
The exam is intended to stimulate a healthy rivalry among colleges' mathematics programs by testing students' originality and technical competence. A question may ask the students to "find the sum of all seven-digit whole numbers containing only zeros and ones divisible by 15."
Yangyang Liu '09, who took the exam last year and plans to take it again in December, feels that Dartmouth's training session fails to guide its students to achieve proficiency on the Putnam exam.
"Other schools have true training sessions, but we do not really have a training program at all," Liu said.
Freshmen and sophomores filled Carson 60 on Wednesday night, while juniors and seniors remained relatively absent.
"There's seriously no one who can compete among the [juniors] and [seniors], I think," said Mehra, who is only a Math Society member and is not taking the exam.
Those fortunate enough to score well on the exam receive many prizes and scholarships.
The highest scoring individual receives up to $12,000 and a full scholarship to Harvard's graduate mathematics program. The 25 highest scorers receive monetary prizes, the top five of which are granted the prestigious Putnam Fellow title. Many institutions award scholarships to these mathematically-skilled individuals.
Dartmouth students taking the exam have certainly established their proficiency in mathematics. Yangyang Liu '09 was chosen to be on the Chinese training team for the International Mathematics Olympiad, the world high school mathematics championship competition. Additionally, Vlad Dobru '10 served as an alternate on Romania's team for the International Math Olympiad -- in 10th grade.
Most of these mathematics students took classes ranging in intensity from Math 17 to Math 81 during their freshman year -- courses that graduate students usually take.
Mathematics professor Vladimir Chernov, who was unavailable for comment, runs the Putnam exam practice sessions, giving students $1 when they solve a problem correctly.
According to some students preparing for the exam, however, Chernov's sessions lack the degree of intensity often found on the exam.
"These Putnam sessions are cute, nice and innocent," Liu said. "They can be solved by very elementary means."
