LÊ THÀNH ĐẠT

Pairing Method

Bài 1. A grasshopper jumps along a line. His first jump is 1 inch, second is 2 inches,
third -3 inches, and so on. At every jump he can go either to the left or to the right. Show
that he cannot return to his initial position after 2022 jumps.

Bài 2. Three frogs are placed on three vertices of a square. Every minute, one frog leaps
over another frog, in such a way that the "leapee" is at the midpoint of the line segment
whose endpoints are the starting and ending position of the "leaper." Will a frog ever
occupy the vertex of the square that was originally unoccupied?

Bài 3. On the number line we mark 45 points lying outside the segment AB. Prove that
the sum of the distances from these points to point A does not equal the sum of the
distances from these points to point B .

Bài 4. Give 2025 positive integers a 1 , a 2 , · · · a 2025 . Let b1 , b2 , · · · b2025 be the same numbers
but in different order. Show that the product ((a 1 − b1 ) (a 2 − b2 ) · · · (a 2025 − b2025 ) is always
even.

Bài 5. Each square of a 25 × 25 table is filled with either 1 or -1 . Let a i be product of all
numbers in the i -th row and b j be product of all numbers in the j -th column. Show that
a 1 + · · · a 25 + b 1 + · · · b 25 ̸= 0

Bài 6. Out of 101 coins, 50 are counterfeit and differ from the original ones in weight by
1 gram. You pick a coin out of those 101 coins. You have a scale that shows the difference
in weights between the two sides of the scale. Find the least number of weighings you
need to perform to know if this coin is counterfeit?

Bài 7. Example 1 Let M be any k-element subset of set I = {1, 2, . . ., n}. Assume that k
elements of M are arranged in a decreasing order with i 1 > i 2 > · · · > i k and i 1 − i 2 + i 3 −
· · ·+ (−1)k−1 i k is called the alternating sum of set M (For example, the alternating sum of
set {1, 2, 4, 6, 9} is 9 − 6 + 4 − 2 + 1 = 6, and the alternating sum of set {5} is 5 ). What is the
total of all the alternative sums?

Bài 8. There is a set M = {1, 2, . . . , 1000}. For any nonempty X of M , let α X denote the sum
of the greatest number and the smallest number in X . Then the arithmetic mean value
of all α X is equal to .

Bài 9. Among any 133 positive integers, there are at least 799 pairs of coprime positive
integers. Prove that there exist 4 distinct positive integers a, b, c, d such that a and b, b
and c, c and d, d and a are relatively prime.

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LÊ THÀNH ĐẠT

Bài 10. Let 11 sets M1 , M2 , . . . , M11 satisfy the following conditions:

n( x) = |{ M i | x ∈ M i , 1 É i É 11}| , n = Max{ n( x) | x ∈ T }.

Find the smallest value of n.

Bài 11. On an 8 × 8 chessboard, two players A and B set the chessmen in turn and
everytime one could set a chessman in several empty mit squares in the same row or in
the same column (only one chessman in each gird). Assume that A goes first and then
the players alternate. A player wins if another player could not set a chessmen any more.
Who has a winning strategy?

Bài 12. Alice and Bob play a game on a 6 by 6 grid. On his or her turn, a player chooses
a rational number not yet appearing in the grid and writes it in an empty square of the
grid. Alice goes first and then the players alternate. When we have written the numbers
in all squares, in each row, the square with the greatest number in that row is colored
black. Alice wins if she can then draw a line from the top of the grid to the bottom of
the grid that stays in black squares, and Bob wins if she cannot. (If two squares share
a vertex, Alice can draw a line from one to the other that stays in these two squares. )
Find, with proof, a winning strategy for one of the plays.

Bài 13. Two players A and B play a game. The player A goes first and then the players
alternate. Each time the player deletes any 9 numbers from the following 101 numbers:
1, 2, 3, . . . , 101. After deleting numbers continually 11 times, there are two numbers a and
b (a > b) which are not deleted, then the number of marks of A is a b. Prove that player
A can got at least 55 marks no matter how B goes.

Bài 14. On an infinite grid, two players A and B set chessmen in the empty unit square
in turn. The player A set the black chessmen and the player B set the white chessmen.
The player A goes first and then players alternate. The first player A wins if there are
11 black chessmen appearing in the continual unit squares at the same row or at the
same column or at the same diagonal line. Prove that the second player B has a strategy
such that the player A cannot win.

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