The 2004 William Lowell Putnam was held on December 4, 2004. This year 3733 undergraduates representing 515 institutions participated. The test contains 12 problems and is given in two 3 hour segments. Each problem is worth a maximum of 10 points, resulting in 120 possible points. Most years the median score is very low, usually about 1 point.

Ten students participated at the University of Minnesota. Of these, 3 were selected before the competition to compete on behalf of the University in the team portion (calculated by summing the individual students’ scores).

2004 Team Members consisted of Matthew Korson, Derek Dalle, and myself. I haven’t heard how the team fared in the competition.

Personally I scored 46/120, placing me 122nd nationally.

This is up from last year’s performance, where I scored 30.3/120 and placed 200th. I definitely knew I did better than last year when I walked out of the test, but my feelings on the test’s difficulty still hold true.

Update: The University of Minnesota – Twin Cities team finished in 63rd place overall.