Research Entry

With my project, I guess most of my regular entries are in some capacity "research". (I using print resources to increase my understanding). This is definitely an argument that can be made, but for the most part, what I'm doing is really just "training". So I think it would behoove me to do some actual research. 

I realized I never really explained what exactly the Putnam Exam was, how it is formatted, and how it is graded, so this will be my first research entry. My second will be about other competitions in which I can participate. 

The William Lowell Putnam exam is an annual competition for undergraduate students, administered by the Mathematical Associates  of America. There are two sets of 6 problems, separated by a lunch break. Each problem is graded out of 10 points. The median score is generally somewhere around 2 or 3 points out of 120. 

For each problem, the most common scores are: 0, 10, 9, and 1. A nine is a correct solution with one small mistake. A one is some correct reasoning, leading up to a solution. (Most competitions like this are not very generous with partial credit.)

Awards:

The top 5 finishers are given named Putnam Fellows, and are given $2500 each.

One of them is given a full ride to graduate school at Harvard University.

The next 9  finishers are given $1000 each, and the following 9 are given $250.

The next 50 or so are given Honorable Mentions.

The top 100, 200, and 500 are recorded in some manner.

I also found a lot of statistics from past competitions, which I can use to see where I stack up.