National Girls’ Programming Contest 2022

Judge Notes

February 25, 2023

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Statistics

10 problems.
104 teams.

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C. Strong Passwords

Author: Rafid Bin Mostofa

Number of Teams Solved: 100

Number of Teams Tried: 103

Abridged Problem Statement

Suggest a standard strong password with certain requirements.

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Solution

One such solution is Mitu1997@qt!

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G. Alligator Sky

Author: Iftekhar Hakim Kaowsar

Number of Teams Solved: 71

Number of Teams Tried: 93

Abridged Problem Statement

Maximum value of x + y such that x · a + y · b = n, a + b ≥ k and
0 ≤ (x − y ) ≤ 1.

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Solution

Optimal to choose a, b such that a + b = k.

(
⌊n/k⌋ · 2 if k divides n
Result =
⌊n/k⌋ · 2 + 1 otherwise

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Solution (contd)

Handle k = 1 separately, result is n.

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E. Shortest Path, Yet Again

Author: Sabbir Rahman Abir

Number of Teams Solved: 38

Number of Teams Tried: 60

Abridged Problem Statement

Given n, m, k, create a n × m grid with start cell, end cell and
obstacles such that shortest path between start and end cell is k.

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Solution (1/2)

Just make a zigzag path with start cell at top left.

Then traverse this path for k cells and put the end cell!

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Solution (2/2)

nm
This works as 2 ≤ k ≤ 2 and in the contsruction, more than half
cells are free.

The traversal can be done via a BFS or just a while loop with
some if else.

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I. Farewell Gift for Messi

Author: Md. Shariful Islam

Number of Teams Solved: 11

Number of Teams Tried: 16

Abridged Problem Statement

Given n, p, x, y , find number of possible arrays with length n with
integer values in [0, 2p ) such that bitwise OR of the array is x and
bitwise AND of the array is y .

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Solution

Consider the number of ways for each of the p bits separately.

For a particular bit,

If both OR and AND have same value, we must assign that
value for every index in the array.
If AND has 1 but OR has 0, there is no such array, hence
answer will be 0.
If AND has 0 but OR has 1, the number of ways is (2n − 2)
(excluding all 0’s and all 1’s).

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Solution (contd.)

So, the answer is 0 if there is some bit where AND is 1 but OR is 0.

Otherwise the answer is (2n − 2)x , where x is the number of bits

where AND is 1 but OR is 0.

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B. Angels and Demons

Author: Tariq Bin Salam

Number of Teams Solved: 3

Number of Teams Tried: 16

Abridged Problem Statement

Given Q range addition/subtraction updates, what is the initial
minimum value, such that applying these updates sequentially does
not make the running sum 0 or lower at any point?

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Solution

Observation: It is possible to do a binary search on the result.

How to check if you can survive with initial health H?
Sort all intervals according to S and simulate the updates
from checkpoint 1 to N with health H and see if you survived
Complexity: O(Q log(H)) where H is the maximum possible
initial health.

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J. Wizard Duel

Author: Rafid Bin Mostofa

Number of Teams Solved: 2

Number of Teams Tried: 10

Abridged Problem Statement

Given a few ratios of unknown variables, compute ratio between
two query variables.

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Solution

Fractions can be chained and multiplied together to get the values

of a new fraction.
a a c z
= × × ··· ×
b c d b

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Solution (contd.)

Consider the wizards as vertices.

Pi
For each info Pj = yx , we add two directed edges:
x
i to j with weight y
y
j to i with weight x

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Solution (contd.)

The value of PPba is the multiplication of weights of the edges in the

path from a to b.

If there are no such paths, the outcome is unknown.

If the value equals 1, it is a draw. Otherwise, if it’s greater than 1,

it is a win and lose otherwise.

We can use DFS, BFS or DSU to traverse the graph.

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D. Interesting Parenthesis

Author: Mahdi Hasnat Siyam

Number of Teams Solved: 1

Number of Teams Tried: 3

Abridged Problem Statement

Count the number of parentheses sequence of length 2n, that can
be balanced by at most one swap.

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Solution

Consider all opening parentheses as +1, and all closing parentheses

as -1.

To check if a parentheses sequence is balanced:

Summation of the +1, -1 values equals to 0.
None of the prefix sum is less than 0.

A parenthesis sequence is interesting if all of the prefix sums are

greater than or equal to −2 and the total sum is 0.

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Solution (contd.)

Let dp(n, c) be the number of parenthesis sequence we can

generate such that we have remaining n position left and current
prefix sum is c.
dp(0, 0) = 1
dp(0, c ̸= 0) = 0
We can compute dp(n, c) by the following:
(
dp(n − 1, c + 1) + dp(n − 1, c − 1) if c − 1 ≥ −2
dp(n, c) =
dp(n − 1, c + 1) otherwise

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Solution (contd.)

Complexity: O(N 2 ).

There exists a faster approach using the idea of Catalan Numbers.

See OEIS series A026012.

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H. Plantik

Author: Kazi Md Irshad

Number of Teams Solved: 0

Number of Teams Tried: 0

Abridged Problem Statement

Calculate the probability of a team winning a penalty shootout,
given scoring probabilities of each player.

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Solution

The optimal shooting order is sorted in non-increasing order.

Which means the best shooter will go first and the worst will go
last. 5 best shooters already took shots.

Remaining shooting order is from 6th to 11th, then 1st to 5th.

Let us relabel the shooters (from 6th to 11th, then 1st to 5th) as
1st to 11th.

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Solution (contd.)

Let fi be the probability that Argentina wins from the situation

when the next shooters of each team is i. Let Xi be the probability
that Argentina win after each team’s i shoots. And Yi be the
probability that the shootout continues.

If Argentina score and France miss then Argentina win.

Xi = Ai · (1 − Fi )
If both players score or miss, the shootout continues.

Yi = Ai · Fi + (1 − Ai ) · (1 − Fi )

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Solution (contd.)

Now we can write for each i in range [1, 10]

fi = Xi + Yi · fi+1
And additionally

f11 = X11 + Y11 · f1

We need to find f1 .

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Solution (contd.)

We can solve the equations by iteratively merging the linear

equations.

We can also solve it by algebraic manipulation.

11
P j<i
Q
(Xi · Yi )
i=1 j=1
f1 = 11
Q
1− Yi
i=1

We can also solve it by gaussian elimination.

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A. Half Measures

Author: Pritom Kundu

Number of Teams Solved: 0

Number of Teams Tried: 24

Abridged Problem Statement

The numbers 1, 2, · · · n are written on a board. In one operation,
you can halve any number. Find minimum sum after k operations.

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Solution

Observation: Its always optimal to choose the largest

number and halve it.
O(k) solution by simulation. Too slow.

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Solution (contd.)

Multiple ways to optimize. Instead of choosing one number at

a time, we can choose an interval [l, r ] with l > r /2, and
perform all moves at once.
Keep intervals of the form (l, r , x) meaning numbers from l to
r exists exactly x times. make sure that l > r /2. Then take
the last interval, halve it and merge with existing intervals.
It can be proven that there will be at most O(log (n))
intervals leading to a O(log 2 (n)) sol.
O(log (n)) solutions exist, but even harder to implement.

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F. Predict The Frequency

Author: Iftekhar Hakim Kaowsar

Number of Teams Solved: 0

Number of Teams Tried: 3

Abridged Problem Statement

Given N, M, X , construct all possible array with length N with
values in [1, M] such that none of their frequency exceeds X .
Score of an array is the maximum frequency of its values. Find the
sum of score of all possible arrays.

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Solution

Let us define dp(n, m, x) as the number of arrays with length

n, constructed by values [1, m] and maximum frequency of its
values does not exceed x.
In the transition part, we will iterate over how many values
will get frequency x. This count will surely not exceed ⌊ xn ⌋.
Otherwise, final array size will exceed n. So, count
c = 0 · · · ⌊ xn ⌋.

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Solution (contd.)

If we fix a value of c, we can choose c distinct values in m

c
ways.
n


We can choose c · x positions to place them in c·x ways.
(c·x)!
Placing those values in those position has (x!)c ways.

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Solution (contd.)

n
⌊ x ⌋   
X m n (c · x)!
dp(n, m, x) = dp(n − c · x, m − c, x − 1)
c c · x (x!)c
c=0

This may look like O(n4 ). But the number of total transition
is limited by O(nlgn). To proof this, fix n and m. For those
fixed n and m, the total transition will be
⌊ n1 ⌋ + ⌊ n2 ⌋ + ... + ⌊ nn ⌋. This is shaped by sum of harmonic
series which is nlogn.
Hence, total complexity will O(n3 logn).

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Contributors

Rafid Bin Mostofa, BUET

Mahdi Hasnat Siyam, BUET
Pritom Kundu, BUET
Tariq Bin Salam, BUET
Iftekhar Hakim, BUET
Shariful Islam, BUET
Apurba Saha, BUET
Sabbir Rahman Abir, BUET
Kazi Md Irshad, BUET
Shimul Sutradhar, DIU
Abu Saleh, DIU
Md. Rahat Islam, DIU

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