Qld AIMO Program 2022

Problem Sheet 5 - Counting

Due 6pm Sunday Aug 7

Submit your Number answers via link. You will need your Program student ID from the
letter with dates:
https://forms.gle/vd2oD2fKkWZfv6FP7

All Number answers are integers between 2 and 1000. Submit 0 if you are unable to
solve and submit 1 if you did not attempt the question.

1. Cath arranges the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 to form two 4-digit integers whose

difference is as small as possible. What is their difference?

2. We want to fill in the remaining squares in such a way that each of the numbers 1
to 6 appears in every row and every column. In how many ways can this be done?

1 2 3 4 5 6
2 5
3 4
4 3
5 2
6 5 4 3 2 1

3. A very messy teenager’s room has strewn on the floor 100 red socks, 80 green socks,
60 blue socks and 6 black socks. The teenager wakes up in the morning, blurry
eyed so unable to see, and selects socks one at a time from the floor. What is the
smallest number of socks that must be selected to guarantee at least 10 pairs? (A
pair of socks is two socks of the same color. No sock may be counted in more than
one pair.)

4. In the expression below, three of the plus signs are changed into minus signs so that
the expression is equal to 102. In how many ways can this be done?

0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 17 + 18 + 19 + 20.

5. This problem is best done drawing as a graph with vertices and edges and checking
cases.
A tennis tournament had five teams of two people: Fred/Alice, Jayne/David,
Shen/Felicity, Lynne/Brian, and Gina/Richardo. However, not all of the games
were friendly and not all the players shook hands. In fact, no player shook his or
her own hand, no player shook the hand of their partner and only some players
shook their opponents’ hands. At the end of the tournament, Richardo asked each
player how many hands he or she had shaken. Every player gave a different answer,
except Gina who had the same answer as Richardo. How many hands did Gina
shake?

1
 6. Working Problem This question is not super difficult and requires no advanced
mathematics and thus younger students should attempt it:

Initially a bucket contains 1000 white and 1000 black balls. Repeatedly three balls
are removed randomly from the bucket and replaced with some balls from a pile
outside the bucket as follows: 3 blacks are replaced with 1 black, or 2 blacks and 1
white are replaced with a white and a black, or 1 black and 2 whites are replaced
with 2 whites, or 3 whites are replaced with a black and a white. Which of the
following could be the contents of the bucket after repeated applications of this
procedure: two blacks; two whites; one black; one white; one black and one white?
Make sure you explain why only that case is possible (and that it can be achieved).
Note: ** indicates this question is particularly difficult.

HINTS
Q1: Sensible guess and check.
Q2: You may wish to draw a tree diagram that splits each time you have a choice of
number you can place in a cell.
Q3: How many socks do you need to pick to ensure one matching pair?
Q4: How much do you need to change? Be careful not to double count cases.
Q5: Consider some of the logic from the worked example during the Zoom re shaking
hands.
Q6: Look for an invariant or if not sure what that means try a logical way of playing the
game.