Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad-2016

1 Sophia Road, #04-05 Peace Centre, Singapore 228149

Website: www.sasmo.sg
Email: sasmooffice@gmail.com
Tel: (65) 6554 9638/ 9067 2766/ 9746 6181

~ International Recognition for Mathematical Achievements through Global Competitions

SASMO celebrates a DECADE in 2015
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Dear Principal and Maths HOD, 2ndMarch, 2016

I am the Chairman of the Advisory Council for SASMO (Singapore and Asian Schools Math
Olympiad) and I am writing to invite your students to participate in the SASMO 2016
Contest, which will be held on 16th, April 2016 (Saturday) in India.

You may have heard of the Cheryl’s birthday puzzle, which went viral on 11 Apr 2015, not
only in Singapore or inour neighbouring countries, but as far as the US, Europe and even
New Zealand.This puzzle appeared as one of the more difficult questions in the SASMO
2015 Contest held on 8 Apr 2015.

However, most of the SASMO Contest questions were not that difficult. Unlike most Math
Olympiads which cater to the top 0.1% of the student population and many participants might
feel discouraged by the high standards, SASMO Contests seek to stretch the top 40% of the
student population by making the standards just high enough for them (see attached sample
questions).

Unlike some Math Olympiads where each school can only send in a small team and there are
only a few winners, schools can send in any number of studentsfrom each class/level to take
part in the SASMO Contests, which seek to encourage the students by giving awards (Gold,
Silver, Bronze) to the top 40% of the participants in each class/level.

In order to stretch the participants, they should be trained. All participants will get a free
SASMO 2015 Contest Book to help them prepare for the contest. Your school teacher-in-
charge can also conduct training for the students.

Please see the attached letter from the Executive Director of our partner institution,
International Society for Olympiad, in India, for the details. Further queries should be
directed to him.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Joseph Yeo B. W.
Chairman, SASMO Advisory Council
 Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad-2016
International Society for Olympiad, SCO-388,
Second Floor, Gurgaon (India), Hand Held: 0124-2573350, www.isfo.in
1- Sophia Road, #04-05 Peace Centre, Singapore 228149, Website: www.sasmo.sg
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Dear Principal and Maths HOD, 2nd March, 2016

SASMO is an International fame Mathematics Contest in which several Asian Countries take
part which include Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia,Myanmar, Vietnam, Brunei,
Hong Kong,China, Mongolia, Bulgaria, Kazahkstan and Uzbekistan. From this year
International Society for Olympiad (ISFO) have been added as SASMO’s Indian partner.

We would like to invite your school to participate in the SASMO 2016 Contest. You can send
in any number of students from each class/level to take part. Each class/level will have a
different paper.The Contest will be held on 16th, April 2016 (Saturday) in Indiain your
school for your own students.

Objectives of SASMO Contest

SASMO caters to the top 40% of the student population and it aims to arouse students’
interest in mathematical problem solving, and to develop mathematical intuition, reasoning,
logical, creative and critical thinking. Your encouragement and recognition of the importance
of the Olympiad objectives will help your students enjoy the Olympiad programme, which in
turn will progressively enable them to become more efficient problem solvers.

Important Information’s:

14th April, 2016 (Thursday): Closing date for contest registration in India
15th April 2016 (Friday): School can downloadstudent contest packs (questions / answer
entry sheets)
16 April 2016 (Saturday): SASMO 2016 Contest in India
18 April2016 (Monday): Last day for school to submit the completed papers to SASMO
9 May 2016 (Monday): Announcement of results to your school and on www.sasmo.sg
and www.isfo.in

Free SASMO Contest Book

All participating students will also get a free SASMO 2015Contest Book for the class/level
that they are taking part in. The teacher-in-charge will also get some free copies. The Contest
Bookcontains the 2015 Contest questions andstrategiesto help them prepare for the SASMO
2015 Contest. The Contest Books will be given to the school along withthepurchase of
registration forms. Students can also purchase more past years contest papers from
www.sasmo.sg.
Registration Fee:

The entry fee is Rs. 1000/- per student in India for school sign-up. Students from each school
will register as a group. Every participating school must have a total of at least 25 students,
who can be from different classes/levels (class 2-appearing/passed to class 10-
appearing/passed). The school will appoint a teacher-in-charge who will be responsible to
liaise with ISFO, including submitting the registration forms, conducting of the contest and
general administration. The closing date for the contest registration in India is 14thApril
2016 (Thursday).

If there are fewer than 25 students, they can sign up as private participants (entry fee of Rs.
1100/-) and they will take the contest at our SASMO Math Olympiad centres. Please inform
them to contact us through email or phone directly.

Format of Contest

Section A: 15 Multiple Choice Questions (2 points for each correct answer; 0 point for each
unanswered question; deduct 1 point for each wrong answer)
Section B: 10 Non-routine Questions (4 points for each correct answer; no penalty for wrong
answers)
Total: 85 points (to avoid negative scores, each student will begin with 15 points)

Awards
1. Topper of each class will get to participate in Level-2 contest in Singapore
2. Top 3 students of each class will get to participate in summer camp in Delhi to get trained
by National and International Math Olympiad experts
3. Top 3 schools to get the trophy
4. Top 8 % of each class will get gold award certificates
5. Next 12% to get silver award certificates
6. Next 20 % to get bronze award certificates
7. Certificate of participation and International Rank to all

SASMO/ISFO reserves the rights to amend the rules when necessary without informing any
party.

Contact Us
If you have further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us:
Phone: 0124-2573350, E-mail: sanjay@isfo.in
Yours Sincerely,

Sanjay K Singh
Executive Director
International Society for Olympiad (SASMO Partner - India)
Sample SASMO Contest Questions for Primary Schools (Class 2 to 6 appearing/passed)

There are some easier questions (to encourage students) and some more difficult questions
(which is why students need to prepare themselves or go for training). Some of the questions
are related to what they have learnt in their school maths, but require a bit of higher order
thinking.

1. The diagram shows some cubes of the same size stacked at a corner of a room. How
many cubes are there altogether? (Note: The floor is horizontal and the two walls are
vertical. There are no gaps or holes behind the visible cubes.)

2. The Southeast Asian (SEA) Games is held once every two years, except in 1963 (i.e.
it was held in 1961 and 1965, but not in 1963). Singapore hosted the 28th SEA Games
in 2015. When was the first SEA Games held (although it was known as South East
Asian Peninsula Games at that time)?

3. A bag contains some sweets that can be divided equally among 3, 4 or 6 children with
no remainder. What is the smallest possible number of sweets in the bag?

4. The following bar graph shows the favourite colour of a class of 40 students (each
student chooses exactly one colour). The tic marks on the vertical axis are equally
spaced. How many students’ favourite colour is blue?

No. of Favourite Colour

students

0 yellow green blue red Colour

5. What is the largest number of parts that can be obtained from cutting a circle using 4
straight cuts? (Note: Do not count the parts outside the circle.)

6. A particular month has 5 Fridays. The first and the last day of the month are not
Fridays. What day is the last day of the month?
7. A circle is inscribed in a square as shown in the diagram. The perimeter of the square
is 32 cm. Find the area of the circle in terms of .

1
8. A bag of candy is shared between Amy and Ben in the ratio 5 : 3. After Amy gives
2
of her share to Ben, Ben has 18 pieces of candy more than Amy. How many pieces of
candy are there altogether?

9. In a chess tournament, each player has to play one game with every other player. Five
players, Albert, Ben, Charles, Dennis and Ethan, took part in the tournament. So far,
Albert has played 4 games, Ben has played 3 games, Charles has played 2 games and
Dennis has played 1 game. How many games has Ethan played?

10. A drawer contains 40 coloured socks: 10 black, 14 blue and 16 white. Daniel takes
some socks from the drawer without looking at the colours of the socks. What is the
least number of socks he must take so that he has at least 2 socks of the same colour?
[Hint: Consider the worst case scenario.]

11. Find the last digit of 320. [Hint: The last digit repeats.]

12. The police arrested four suspects who know one another. The suspects know which
one of them has stolen the watch, but the police could not find the watch on any one
of them.

Albert: I did not steal the watch.

Bernard: Albert is lying.
Cecilia: Bernard stole the watch.
Denise: Bernard is lying.

If only one of them is telling the truth, who stole the watch?
 Sample SASMO Contest Questions for Secondary Schools (Class 7 to 10
appearing/passed)

There are some easier questions (to encourage students) and some more difficult questions
(which is why students need to prepare themselves or go for training). Some of the questions
are related to what they have learnt in their school maths, but require a bit of higher order
thinking.

1. Find the least value of n such that its LCM with 6 is 18.

2. A man walks for 5 metres in one direction, turns 45 to his right and walks for another
5 metres in that direction. Then he turns another 45 to his right and walks for another
5 metres in that direction. He continues walking in this pattern until he reaches his
original starting point. Find the total distance that the man has walked.

3. What is the largest product that can be formed from using the digits 2, 3, 4 and 5, and
one multiplication sign? You are only allowed to combine the digits to form two
numbers, e.g. 2  345, but you are not allowed to use indices, e.g. 23 45 is not
allowed.

4. There are two circles, each of radius 8 cm, lying on a plane and tangential to each
other (i.e. the two circles just touch each other at one point). Find the number of
circles of radius 16 cm lying on the same plane and tangential to the first two circles.

5. The following histogram shows the average amount of money spent by students in the
school canteen every day.

No. of
students Money Spent

200

100

Money
0
(in dollars)
0 1 2 3 4

Which one of the following statement is true?

(a) The median is $1.

(b) The students spent more money in the canteen during the middle of the day.
(c) If the school decided to increase the price of the food in the canteen, then the
heights of the columns would get higher.
(d) The mode is 200 students.
(e) None of the above

6. Alice throws a ball into the air. The path of the ball can be modelled by the equationh
= t 2 + 4t + 1, where t, in seconds, is the time from the moment the ball is thrown,
and h, in metres, is the height of the ball above the ground. Find the difference in
height between the ball at its highest point and at the point from which it is thrown.
7. There are n balls in a bag. Three of the balls are blue and the rest are red. The balls are
identical except for the colour. Sam randomly takes out two balls from the bag. The
1
probability that the two balls taken out are blue is . Find the value of n.
2

8. In a chess tournament, each player has to play one game with every other player.
Seven players, Albert, Ben, Charles, Dennis, Ethan, Francis and George, took part in
the tournament. So far, Albert has played 6 games, Ben has played 5 games, Charles
has played 4 games, Dennis has played 3 games, Ethan has played 2 games and
Francis has played 1 game. How many games has George played?

9. Find the last digit of 32015. [Hint: The last digit repeats.]

10. Given that n! = n (n 1)  (n 2)  …  3  2  1, find the remainder when

1! + 2! + 3! + … + 2015!

is divided by 8. [Hint: 4! Is divisible by 8]

11. Find the value of 8 + 8 + 8 + ⋯ + 8 , where each 8 is a Binomial coefficient.

0 1 2 8 𝑟
[Hint: Let x = 1 in the Binomial expansion of (1 + x)8.]

12. The following is a conversation between Gabriel and Heather.

Gabriel: I thought of two distinct one-digit numbers. Can you guess the sum of
these two numbers?
Heather: No. Can you give me a clue?
Gabriel: The last digit of the product of the two numbers is your house number.
Heather: Now I know the sum of the two numbers.

So what is the sum of the two numbers?