[bigpooch]

I wrote the Putnam in a year when the problems were easier
than usual (>10 years ago) and regretted not "studying for
it" (amazingly knew hardly any abstract algebra!) and had a
sick feeling after all of it, since it was clear that I
couldn't answer some of the problems. Nowadays, Putnam
problems on average seem much harder (but that's likely
because I'm not as sharp!). If anyone scores above 30
nowadays, that should be considered a decent accomplishment.
I was completely stunned to learn that many students score
ZERO (!) on the Putnam ( recently discovered this).

There was only one other exam that made me feel this way:
an analysis midterm that had six very difficult problems, of
which we could choose three to solve. The professor stated
to us, "Just try to do ONE WELL". Needless to say, after
that midterm, our "big class" of almost twenty eventually
dropped to about ten (okay, maybe the prof didn't think
some students belonged!). In any case, to be absolutely
honest, this was the very first exam in which there was no
problem I could even think of solving! Then, I couldn't
completely solve more than one problem on that midterm
(despite making some attempts on all six), the papers were
marked (my paper received four "checkmarks") but the exam
didn't count towards our grade (it became a "take-home"
exam). Although I felt totally sick, I couldn't imagine
how most of my classmates felt! And worst of all: I
thought I had prepared extremely well before the midterm!

Also, FWIW, I scored 41/48 on Ron Hoeflin's IQ test, which
is more difficult to achieve. Again, it doesn't really mean
very much in the "grand scheme", but could explain why my
perception is often skewed [ such as a "legitimate" Ph.D.
in mathematics is a lot easier to obtain than previously
thought!].