Download#

Download the most recent draft.

About#

The OTIS Excerpts is a mini-book that I put together from lecture notes I use during the year. It is a collection of 202 problems and solutions. It is designed to mostly be beginner-friendly though some of the chapters are more challenging.

There is also a user-created forum for discussing the examples and problems from the text.

Contents#

The Excerpts consist of selected problems from the following thirteen topics from the OTIS catalog:

• Standard inequalities
• Functional equations
• Monsters
• Two-part problems (a simplified version of “entry combo” from OTIS)
• Global
• Local
• Rigid
• Free
• Anti-problems
• Orders
• Prime exponents
• Heavy number theory (called “advanced techniques”)
• Constructions in Number Theory

Most of the lecture material is adapted from existing handouts of mine but some of it is new. In addition, there is a chapter for beginners in proof-writing, and three chapters consisting of selected problems and solutions to recent USA team selection test problems.

Geometry is not covered; there is already a textbook for that.

Source#

The source code is sludge, but if you really want it here’s a ZIP. Much of the underlying TeX is actually machine generated (by interactions with my problem database), so don’t learn any habits from it.