ASSIGNMENT

SUBJECT: IOQM Topic: Combinatorics

READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY

1. Questions 1 to 10 carry 2 marks each; Questions 11 to 20 carry 3 marks each;
Questions 21 and 30 carry 5 marks each.
2. There are no negative marks.
3. Use of mobile phones, smartphones, ipads, calculators, programmable wrist watches is
STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Only ordinary pens and pencils are allowed inside the examination hall.
4. The correction is done by machines through scanning. On the OMR Sheet, darken bubbles
completely with a black pencil or a black or blue ball pen. Darken the bubbles completely only
after you are sure of your answer; else, erasing may lead to the OMR sheet getting damaged
and the machine may not be able to read the answer.
5. The name, email address, and date of birth entered on the OMR sheet will be your login
credentials for accessing your PRMO score.
6. Incomplete/Incorrectly and carelessly filled information may disqualify your candidature.
7. Each question has a one, two or three digit number as answer.

1. In the expansion of (ax + b)2000, where a and b are relatively prime positive integers,
the coefficients of x and x are equal. Find a + b.
2 3

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 N
2. Given that + + + + + + + = find the greatest
2! 17 ! 3! 16! 4! 15! 5! 14! 6! 13! 7 ! 12! 8! 11! 9! 10! 1! 18!
N
integer that is less than .
100

3. In a group of nine people each person shakes hands with exactly two of the other people from the
group. Let N be the number of ways this handshaking can occur. Consider two handshaking
arrangements different if and only if at least two people who shake hands under one arrangement
do not shake hands under the other arrangement. Find the remainder when N is divided by 1000.

4. Ten points are marked on a circle. How many distinct convex polygons of three or more sides can
be drawn using some (or all) of the ten points as vertices?

5. A positive integer is called ascending if, in its decimal representation, there are at least two digits
and each digit is less than any digit to its right. How many ascending positive integers are there?

6. The nine horizontal and nine vertical lines on an 8 × 8 checkerboard form rectangles, of which s
are squares. The number s/r can be written in the form m/n, where m and n are relatively prime
positive integers. Find m + n.

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7. Each of the 2001 students at a high school studies either Spanish or French, and some study both.
The number who study Spanish is between 80 percent and 85 percent of the school population,
and the number who study French is between 30 percent and 40 percent. Let m be the smallest
number of students who could study both languages, and let M be the largest number of students
who could study both languages. Find M – m.

8. Let the set S = {8, 5, 1, 13, 34, 3, 21, 2}. Susan makes a list as follows: for each two-element subset
of S, she writes on her list the greater of the set's two elements. Find the sum of the numbers on
the list.

9. Let set A be a 90-element subset of {1, 2, 3, …, 100}, and let S be the sum of the elements of A.
Find the number of possible values of S.

10. Given eight distinguishable rings, let be the number of possible five-ring arrangements on the
four fingers (not the thumb) of one hand. The order of rings on each finger is significant, but it is
not required that each finger have a ring. Find the leftmost three nonzero digits of n.

11. Let A1, A2, A3, …A12 be the vertices of a regular dodecagon. How many distinct squares in the plane
of the dodecagon have at least two vertices in the set {A1, A2, A3, …, A12}?

12. In a shooting match, eight clay targets are arranged in two hanging columns
of three targets each and one column of two targets. A marksman is to
break all the targets according to the following rules:
(1) The marksman first chooses a column from which a target is to be
broken.
(2) The marksman must then break the lowest remaining target in the
chosen column.
If the rules are followed, in how many different orders can the eight targets
be broken?

13. Let S be a set with six elements. In how many different ways can one select two not necessarily
distinct subsets of S so that the union of the two subsets is S? The order of selection does not
matter; for example, the pair of subsets {a, c}, {b, c, d, e, f} represents the same selection as the
pair {b, c, d, e, f}, {a, c}.

14. Two squares of a 7 × 7 checkerboard are painted yellow, and the rest are painted green. Two color
schemes are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by applying a rotation in the plane
board. How many inequivalent color schemes are possible?

15. Let n be the number of ordered quadruples (x1, x2, x3, x4) of positive odd integers that satisfy
4
n
x
i= 1
i = 98 . Find
100
.

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16. How many different 4 × 4 arrays whose entries are all 1's and -1's have the property that the sum
of the entries in each row is 0 and the sum of the entries in each column is 0?

17. An integer is called parity-monotonic if its decimal representation a1a2a3 … ak satisfies ai < ai+1 if ai
is odd, and ai > ai+1 if ai is even. How many four-digit parity-monotonic integers are there?

18. Let Si be the set of all integers n such that 100i  n < 100(i + 1). For example, S4 is the set 400, 401,
402, …, 499. How many of the sets S0, S1, S2, …, S999 do not contain a perfect square?

19. Define an ordered quadruple of integers (a, b, c, d) as interesting if 1  a < b < c < d  10, and a +
d > b + c. How many interesting ordered quadruples are there?

20. An integer between 1000 and 9999, inclusive, is called balanced if the sum of its two leftmost
digits equals the sum of its two rightmost digits. How many balanced integers are there?

21. Let S = {20, 21, 22, …, 210}. Consider all possible positive differences of pairs of elements of S. Let N
be the sum of all of these differences. Find the remainder when N is divided by 1000.

22. Define an ordered triple (A, B, C) of sets to be minimally intersecting if A  B = B  C = C  A = 1

and A  B  C =  . For example,({1, 2}, {2, 3}, {1, 3, 4}) is a minimally intersecting triple. Let N be the
number of minimally intersecting ordered triples of sets for which each set is a subset of {1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7}. Find the remainder when N is divided by 1000.
Note: |S| represents the number of elements in the set S.

23. In a sequence of coin tosses, one can keep a record of instances in which a tail is immediately
followed by a head, a head is immediately followed by a head, and etc. We denote these by TH,
HH, and etc. For example, in the sequence TTTHHTHTTTHHTTH of 15 coin tosses we observe that
there are two HH, three HT, four TH, and five TT subsequences. How many different sequences of
15 coin tosses will contain exactly two HH, three HT, four TH, and five TT subsequences?

24. A game show offers a contestant three prizes A, B and C, each of which is worth a whole number
of dollars from $1 to $9999 inclusive. The contestant wins the prizes by correctly guessing the
price of each prize in the order A, B, C. As a hint, the digits of the three prices are given. On a
particular day, the digits given were 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3. Find the total number of possible guesses for
all three prizes consistent with the hint.

25. For each permutation a1, a2, a3, …, a10 of the integers 1, 2, 3, …, 10, form the sum |a1 – a2| + |a2 – a4|
+ |a5 – a6| + |a7 – a8| + |a9 – a10|.
p
The average value of all such sums can be written in the form , where p and q are relatively
q
prime positive integers. Find p + q.

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26. In a 6 x 4 grid (6 rows, 4 columns), 12 of the 24 squares are to be shaded so that there are two
shaded squares in each row and three shaded squares in each column. Let N be the number of
shadings with this property. Find the remainder when N is divided by 1000.

27. The Annual Interplanetary Mathematics Examination (AIME) is written by a committee of five
Martians, five Venusians, and five Earthlings. At meetings, committee members sit at a round table
with chairs numbered from 1 to 15 in clockwise order. Committee rules state that a Martian must
occupy chair 1 and an Earthling must occupy chair 15, Furthermore, no Earthling can sit
immediately to the left of a Martian, no Martian can sit immediately to the left of a Venusian, and
no Venusian can sit immediately to the left of an Earthling. The number of possible seating
arrangements for the committee is N . (5!)3. Find N.

28. A 7 × 1 board is completely covered by m × 1 tiles without overlap; each tile may cover any number
of consecutive squares, and each tile lies completely on the board. Each tile is either red, blue, or
green. Let N be the number of tilings of the 7 × 1 board in which all three colors are used at least
once. For example, a 1 × 1 red tile followed by a 2 × 1 green tile, a 1 × 1 green tile, a 2 × 1 blue tile,
and a 1 × 1 green tile is a valid tiling. Note that if the 2 × 1 blue tile is replaced by two 1 × 1 blue
tiles, this results in a different tiling. Find the remainder when N is divided by 1000.

29. Ten chairs are arranged in a circle. Find the number of subsets of this set of chairs that contain
at least three adjacent chairs.

30. Consider sequences that consist entirely of A's and B's and that have the property that every run
of consecutive A's has even length, and every run of consecutive B's has odd length. Examples of
such sequences are AA, B, and AABAA, while BBAB is not such a sequence. How many such
sequences have length 14?

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