Past INMO Combinatorics

December 9, 2022

1 Counting
1. (INMO 1986) Suppose A1 , . . . , A6 are six sets each with four elements and
B1 , . . . , Bn are n sets each with two elements, Let S = A1 ∪A2 ∪· · ·∪A6 =
B1 ∪ · · · ∪ Bn . Given that each elements of S belongs to exactly four of
the Ai ’s and to exactly three of the Bj ’s, find n.
2. (INMO 90) Consider the collection of all three-element subsets drawn from
the set{1, 2, 3, 4, ..., 299, 300}. Determine the number of those subsets for
which the sum of the elements is a multiple of 3.
3. (INMO 92)Find the number of permutations (P1 , P2 , P3 , P4 , P5 , P6 ) of
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 such that for any k, 1 ≤ k ≤ 5. (P1 , P2 , ...Pk ) does not form
a permutation of {1, 2, ...k}. That is P1 6= 1; (P1 , P2 ) is not permutation
of {1, 2}; (P1 , P2 , P3 ) is not a permutation of {1, 2, 3}, etc.
4. (INMO 92)Let n ≥ 3 be an integer. Find the number of ways in which
one can place the numbers 1, 2, 3, . . . , n2 in the n2 squares of a n × n
chessboard, one on each, such that the numbers in each row and in each
column are in arithmetic progression.

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 5. (INMO 94)Find the number of non-degenerate triangles whose vertices lie
in the set of points (s, t) in the plane such that 0 ≤ s ≤ 4, 0 ≤ t ≤ 4, with
s and t integers.
6. (INMO 96)Let X be a set containing n elements. Find the number of all
ordered triples (A, B, C) of subsets of X such that A is a subset of B and
B is a proper subset of C
7. (INMO 97)Find the number of 4 × 4 arrays whose entries are from the set
{0, 1, 2, 3} and which are such that the sum of numbers in each of the four
rows and each of the four columns is divisible by 4. (An m × n array is
an arrangement of mn numbers in m rows and n columns.)
8. (INMO2002) Do there exists 100 lines in the plane , no three of them
concurrent , such that they intersect exactly in 2002 points?
9. (INMO2003) Find all 7-digit numbers which use only the digits 5 and 7
and are divisible by 35.
10. (INMO2003) Each lottery ticket has a 9-digit numbers, which uses only the
digits 1, 2, 3. Each ticket is colored red, blue or green. If two tickets have
numbers which differ in all nine places, then the tickets have different
colors. Ticket 122222222 is red, and ticket 222222222 is green. What
colour is ticket 123123123?
11. (INMO 2005)All possible 6-digit numbers, in each of which the digits occur
in non-increasing order (from left to right, e.g. 877550) are written as a
sequence in increasing order. Find the 2005-th number in this sequence.
12. (INMO 2007)Let σ = (a1 , a2 , · · · , an ) be permutation of (1, 2, · · · , n). A
pair (ai , aj ) is said to correspond to an inversion of σ if i < j but ai >
aj . How many permutations of (1, 2, · · · , n), n ≥ 3, have exactly two
inversions? For example, In the permutation (2, 4, 5, 3, 1), there are 6
inversions corresponding to the pairs (2, 1), (4, 3), (4, 1), (5, 3), (5, 1), (3, 1).
13. (INMO 2010) How many 6-tuples (a1 , a2 , a3 , a4 , a5 , a6 ) are there such that
each of a1 , a2 , a3 , a4 , a5 , a6 is from the set {1, 2, 3, 4} and the six expressions
a2j − aj aj+1 + a2j+1
for j = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (where a7 is to be taken as a1 ) are all equal to one
another?

2 Colouring
1. (INMO 2008) All the points with integer coordinates in the xy-Plane are
coloured using three colours, red, blue and green, each colour being used
at least once. It is known that the point (0, 0) is red and the point (0, 1)
is blue. Prove that there exist three points with integer coordinates of
distinct colours which form the vertices of a right-angled triangle.

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 2. (INMO 2009) All the points in the plane are colored using three colors.
Prove that there exists a triangle with vertices having the same color such
that either it is isosceles or its angles are in geometric progression.
3. (INMO 2016) Suppose 2016 points of the circumference of a circle are
colored red and the remaining points are colored blue . Given any natural
number n ≥ 3, prove that there is a regular n-sided polygon all of whose
vertices are blue.

3 Bijection
1. (INMO 95)Show that the number of 3−element subset {a, b, c} of {1, 2, 3, ..., 63}
with a + b + c < 95 is less than the number of those with a + b + c > 95.
2. (INMO2000) For any natural numbers n, (n ≥ 3), let f (n) denote the
number of non congruent integer-sided triangles with perimeter n (e. g.,
f (3) = 1, f (4) = 0, f (7) = 2). Show that
(a) f (1999) > f (1996); (b) f (2000) = f (1997).
3. (INMO2012) Let ABC be a triangle. An interior point P of ABC is said
to be good if we can find exactly 27 rays emanating from P intersecting
the sides of the triangle ABC such that the triangle is divided by these
rays into 27 smaller triangles of equal area. Determine the number of good
points for a given triangle ABC.
4. (INMO2013) Let N be an integer greater than 1 and let Tn be the number
of non empty subsets S of {1, 2, ....., n} with the property that the average
of the elements of S is an integer. Prove that Tn − n is always even.

4 PHP
1. (INMO 89) Let A denote a subset of the set {1, 11, 21, 31, ...541, 551} hav-
ing the property that no two elements of A add up to 552. Prove that A
cannot have more than 28 elements.

2. (INMO 93)Let A = {1, 2, 3, . . . , 100} and B be a subset of A having 53

elements. Show that B has 2 distinct elements x and y whose sum is
divisible by 11.
3. (INMO 94) In any set of 181 square integers, prove that one can always
find a subset of 19 numbers, sum of whose elements is divisible by 19.
4. (INMO2006) Some 46 squares are randomly chosen from a 9 × 9 chess
board and colored in red. Show that there exists a 2 × 2 block of 4 squares
of which at least three are colored in red.

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 5. (INMO 2011)Suppose five of the nine vertices of a regular nine-sided poly-
gon are arbitrarily chosen. Show that one can select four among these five
such that they are the vertices of a trapezium.
6. (INMO 2019/P2)Let A1 B1 C1 D1 E1 be a regular pentagon.For 2 ≤ n ≤ 11,
let An Bn Cn Dn En be the pentagon whose vertices are the midpoint of
the sides An−1 Bn−1 Cn−1 Dn−1 En−1 . All the 5 vertices of each of the 11
pentagons are arbitrarily coloured red or blue. Prove that four points
among these 55 points have the same colour and form the vertices of a
cyclic quadrilateral.

Hints

5 Invariance
1. (INMO 2017)There are n ≥ 3 girls in a class sitting around a circular
table, each having some apples with her. Every time the teacher no-
tices a girl having more apples than both of her neighbours combined,
the teacher takes away one apple from that girl and gives one apple each
to her neighbours. Prove that this process stops after a finite number of
steps. (Assume that the teacher has an abundant supply of apples.)

6 Recurrence relation
1. (INMO 2015)There are four basketball players A, B, C, D. Initially the
ball is with A. The ball is always passed from one person to a different
person. In how many ways can the ball come back to A after seven
moves? (for example A → C → B → D → A → B → C → A, or
A → D → A → D → C → A → B → A).
2. (INMO 2017)For any natural number n, consider a 1×n rectangular board
made up of n unit squares. This is covered by 3 types of tiles : 1 × 1 red
tile, 1 × 1 green tile and 1 × 2 blue domino. (For example, we can have 5
types of tiling when n = 2 : red-red ; red-green ; green-red ; green-green ;
and blue.) Let tn denote the number of ways of covering 1 × n rectangular
board by these 3 types of tiles. Prove that, tn divides t2n+1 .

7 Combinatorial Argument
1. (INMO 1987) Find a finite sequence of 16 numbers such that: (a) it reads
same from left to right as from right to left. (b) the sum of any 7 consec-
utive terms is −1, (c) the sum of any 11 consecutive terms is +1.
2. (INMO 91)There are 10 objects of total weight 20, each of the weights
being a positive integers. Given that none of the weights exceeds 10 ,

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 prove that the ten objects can be divided into two groups that balance
each other when placed on 2 pans of a balance.
3. (INMO 96)There is a 2n × 2n array (matrix) consisting of 0’s and 1’s and
there are exactly 3n zeros. Show that it is possible to remove all the zeros
by deleting some n rows and some n columns. [Note: A m × n array is a
rectangular arrangement of mn numbers in which there are m horizontal
rows and n vertical columns.]
4. (INMO2014) Let n > 1 be a natural number. Let U = {1, 2, ..., n}, and
define A∆B to be the set of all those elements of U which belong to
exactly one of A and B. Show that |F| ≤ 2n−1 , where F is a collection
of subsets of U such that for any two distinct elements of A, B of F we
have |A∆B| ≥ 2. Also find all such collections F for which the maximum
is attained.

Hints

Counting
1. Double counting
2. Resedue classes mod 3
3. trial and error
4. Can we show that all common differnces are the same?
5. Find collinear points
6. Venn diagram
7. Mod 4 works
8. what will be the number of points of intersection if there are r parallel
classes of lines with the i the parallel class having ki lines?
9. Use 1000 ≡ −1 (mod 7), and 100 ≡ 2 (mod 7),
10. trial and error
11. Bijection
12. RR
13. Check when two such expressions are equal.

Colouring
1. Constructive solution with case bash using extremal principle.
2. Consider vertices of the regular heptagon, ABCDEF G with center O.
3. Many ways : PHP, rotation, complex numbers, you may add to the list!

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Bijection
1. Can we create a bijection from the set of solutions of a + b + c > 97 to
that of a + b + c > 95
2. If (a, b, c)forms a triangle ,will (a + 1, b + 1, c + 1) form a triangle? What
about (a − 1, b − 1, c − 1)? Does 2000 is even is a help?
3. Can we show that for every good point there is a sol to equation a+b+c =
27 ,a, b, c ∈ N . What about converse?
4. What is number of such one element subsets ? Now can remaining sets be
paired up?

PHP
1. Gaussian pairing
2. Residue classes mod 11
3. Quadratic residue mod 19
4. Constructive proof
5. Every triangle in aregular pentagon is isosceles.
6. PHP

Invariance
1. Count S =
P
| pi+1 − pi |

Recurrence relation
1. Let xn be the number of ways in which Acan get back the ball after
npasses. Let yn be the number of ways in which the ,ball goes back to a
fixed person than A after n passes.Can we find relation between xn andyn
2. Simply solve RR

Combinatorial Argument
1. Simply find all sets of identical elements
2. Take cases over the largest possible weight
3. Induction, or Delete the n rows containing maximal number of zeros and
show this works
4. Induction

Hints