UNIVERSITY OF COLOMBO, SRI LANKA

FACULTY OF SCIENCE

M.Sc./Postgraduate Diploma in Mathematics Education – 2017

Examination – Semester III

MPM 5010: PROBLEM SOLVING IN MATHEMATICS

Time: Two Hours

Answer all questions

No. of questions: 04
No. of pages: 04 (including the cover page)

Important Instructions to the Candidates

 If a page or a part of this question paper is not printed, please inform the Supervisor
immediately.
 Write the answers to all questions on the writing paper that is provided.
 Write your index number on all pages of the answer script.
 Calculators are not allowed.
 Electronic devices capable of storing and retrieving text including electronic dictionaries
and mobile phones are not allowed.
 At the end of the examination hand over the answer scripts attached together. You can
keep the exam.
1. (i) Consider the following problem:
Of the parallelepiped shown below the faces OAPB, CQSR, APSQ, OBRC are
rectangles and the faces OAQC and BPSR are parallelograms. Find the length
of the diagonal OS if the lengths OA, OB, OC and the angle AOC are given.

(a) George Polya in his book How to Solve It illustrates four phases of
problem solving. What are the four phases of problem solving?
(b) Polya suggests the question “Is the condition sufficient to determine the
unknown?” in solving problems. In what phase one could ask this
question in solving the above problem and what is the answer and
explanation to this question?
(c) The following problem is a related problem and a specialization of the
above problem:
Find the diagonal of a rectangular parallelepiped of which the length, the
width, and the height are known.
Solve the above problem in 1.(i) (finding the length OS) using this related
problem as an auxiliary problem.
(d) How would you check your result? Give two ways of checking your
result.

(ii) Using the problem solving strategy of working backwards or otherwise do

the following problems justifying your answers:
(a) You have two containers that hold exactly 3 liters and 7 liters
respectively and plenty of water. Can 5 liters of water be measured
exactly using only these two containers?
(b) Two players take turns at removing 1 to 5 marbles from a pile of 19
marbles. The player who plays last wins. Does any player have a
winning strategy?

2. (i) Describe open ended problems.

State which one/ones of the following problems is/are open ended and justify
your answer.
(a) Find integer solutions of 3x  7 y  0 .
(b) Find a polynomial function p defined on the set of real numbers such that
p(1)  2019 , p(2)  2020 and p(3)  2021.

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 (ii) Consider the following two tasks:
(a) How many points of intersection does the straight line y  x  1have with
the parabola y  ( x  1) 2 ?
(b) Find an equation of a parabola that has two points of intersection with the
straight line y  x  1.
Discuss solution strategies for the two tasks and the effectiveness of these
two tasks in creating rich and powerful learning situations in a mathematics
classsroom.
3. (i) Consider the following principle:

If a system of masses S consists of parts, each of which has its center of

gravity in the same plane, then this plane contains also the center of gravity
of the whole system S.

Using the above principle and analogy find the center of gravity of a
homogeneous solid tetrahedron as follows. You can assume that the center of
gravity of an infinitely thin strip of mass is its midpoint.

(a) Using the above principle and analogy first solve the following simpler
analogous problem: Show that the center of gravity of a homogeneous
triangle is the point of intersection its medians.
(b) Using the solution of the simpler analogous problem in (a) as a model to
follow show that the center of gravity of a homogeneous solid tetrahedron
is the point of intersection of its median planes.

(ii) Consider the following problem: Can 94 marbles be put into 10 boxes such
that each box gets at least five and no two different boxes get the same
number of marbles?
Which of the following is a restatement of the above problem?
(a) What is the minimum number of marbles that can be put in ten boxes
such that each box gets at least five and no two different boxes get the
same number of marbles?
(b) What is the maximum number of marbles that can be put in ten boxes
such that each box gets at least five and no two different boxes get the
same number of marbles?
Using the restatement you selected solve the given problem.

4. (i) The numbers 1, 2, 3, … , 100 are written on a whiteboard. Consider the

following operation: Erase any two numbers a and b , and write a  b  1.
This operation can be carried out 99 times.
(a) Is the sum of the numbers written on the whiteboard after the nth
operation, n {0,1, 2, ... , 99} , an invariant? Justify your answer.

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 (b) Let f(n) = the sum of the numbers written on the whiteboard after the
nth operation  n , where n {0,1, 2, ... , 99} . Show that f is a constant
function. Using f find the number that will be written on the
whiteboard after carrying out the operation 99 times.

(ii) A 3  3  3 cheese cube is made of 27 little cheese cubes of dimension

111. A rat wants to eats all 27 cheese cubes. A rat can start eating little
cubes from any little cube but after eating any little cube, the next cube the
rat can eat has to be a cube that shares a face with the cube it ate. Show the
following:
(a) If the rat first eats a corner cube, then it can eat all 27 cubes.
(b) If the rat first eats a cube that shares a face with a corner cube, then it
cannot eat all 27 cubes.
(iii) Now consider a cheese cube of size 3  3  3n where n is a positive integer
that is made of 3n2 little cheese cubes of dimension 111. A rat wants to
eats all 3n2 cheese cubes and the same rule applies:
A rat can start eating little cubes from any little cube but after eating any
little cube, the next cube the rat can eat has to be a cube that shares a face
with the cube it ate.
Prove the following:
(a) For any positive integer n , the rat can eat all 3n2 cubes if it eats a
corner cube first.
(b) For any positive integer n , the rat cannot eat all 3n2 cubes if it first
eats a cube that shares a face with a corner cube.

End of Exam

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