First Round

Dutch Mathematical Olympiad

19 January – 29 January 2015

Solutions
A1. A) 5 Adding the circumferences of the two rectangles, we obtain the circumference of
the square plus twice the length of the line segment cutting the square. This line segment and
the sides of the square have the same length. Therefore, the sum of the circumferences of the
two rectangles equals six times the side length of the square. It follows that the square has sides
of length 30
6 = 5 centimetres.

A2. E) Erik Aad, Bas, and Carl cannot all have spoken the truth, because this would imply
that both Dave and Erik lied. Since Aad, Bas, or Carl lied, both Dave and Erik must have told
the truth. Aad and Bas cannot both have told the truth, because then Dave would have lied,
contradicting our previous conclusion. Similarly, Bas and Carl cannot both have told the truth,
because then Erik would have lied.
Since the liar must be either Aad or Bas, and also either Bas or Carl, we conclude that it must
be Bas who is the liar. It follows that Aad was the first to arrive and that Carl arrived third.
Erik arrived in between Bas and Carl. This is possible only if Bas arrived last and Erik arrived
fourth.

A3. A) 12081 The diagonals running from top-right to bottom-left, will be

called anti-diagonals from now on. The main diagonal consists of 2015 grey
squares and the two adjacent diagonals consist of 2014 grey squares each.
A similar statement holds for the anti-diagonals.
The main diagonal intersects the main anti-diagonal in a square, but does
not intersect the adjacent anti-diagonals. Each of the two diagonals adjacent
to the main diagonal intersects each of the two anti-diagonals adjacent to
the main anti-diagonal, but not the main anti-diagonal itself.
This implies that adding the number of squares on the three diagonals and three anti-diagonals,
there are 1 + 2 × 2 = 5 squares which are counted twice. Hence the total number of grey squares
equals 2 × 2015 + 4 × 2014 − 5 = 12081.

A4. E) 22475 Let n be the average of the two numbers. Then one number equals n − 5 and the
other equals n + 5. Their product is (n − 5)(n + 5) = n2 − 25. We will therefore add 25 to
each of the five suggested answers to see which gives a perfect square. We obtain: 22423, 22445,
22467, 22478, and 22500. Clearly, 22500 = 1502 is a perfect square, so option E is correct.
To check that the other options are wrong, we calculate 1492 = (150 − 1)2 = 22500 − 300 + 1 =
22201. Since 1492 < 22423, the options A through D are indeed incorrect.
A5. C) 2 After dividing the faces of the cube, there are 24 squares:
12 white ones and 12 black ones. The number of dark vertices cannot be
zero, because that would imply a total of no more than 8 × 1 = 8 black
squares (one for each corner). The number of dark vertices cannot be
one, because that would imply a total of no more than 3 + 7 × 1 = 10
black squares. A solution with exactly two dark vertices is shown in the
figure. It follows that the minimum number of dark vertices is 2.

A6. B) 2 Suppose that we are summing n numbers. There are two cases to consider.

n is odd In this case, there is a middle number, say k. The sum of the n numbers then equals
n × k = 100. Since n must be an odd divisor of 100, it must be equal to 5 or 25. In the
first case, we find k = 100
5 = 20, with corresponding solution 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 = 100.
In the second case, we find k = 4. But this yields no solution, because the smallest of the
25 numbers would then equal 4 − 12, which is negative.
n is even Write n = 2m. The two middle numbers add up to an odd number, say k. The
summation now consists of m pairs of numbers, each pair adding up to k. Hence, 100 = k×m.
Since k is an odd divisor of 100, it follows that k = 5 or k = 25. In the first case, m = 20
and the middle two numbers are 2 and 3. This does not yield a solution, because otherwise
the smallest number would be 3 − 20, which is negative. In the second case, m = 4, with
corresponding solution 100 = 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16.

A7. C) 18 The node in the centre cannot be coloured red, because otherwise we would create
a horizontal or vertical line containing three red nodes. Both the horizontal and the vertical line
need two red nodes. There are 4×3 2 = 6 ways of colouring two nodes on the horizontal line. In
two cases, the two coloured nodes lie on a common circle. Then, the vertical line has only two
nodes left that may be couloured red. This can be done in only one way. In the other four cases,
the two red nodes lie on different circles. On the vertical line, we need to colour one node from
each circle. This can be done in 2 × 2 = 4 ways. In total, Jaap has 2 × 1 + 4 × 4 = 18 ways of
colouring the nodes.

A8. D) 1013 The number of newly grown branches doubles every day. Hence, on days 1, 2, 3, . . .
an additional 1, 2, 4, 8, . . . branches are grown. In general, 2n−1 new branches are grown on
day n.
The total numbers of branches on the consecutive days are therefore 1, 1 + 2 = 3, 1 + 2 + 4 =
7, 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15, and so on. On day n, the tree has a total of 1 + 2 + 4 + · · · + 2n−1 = 2n − 1
branches.
Each day, the number of leaves increases by the number of branches on the day before. Therefore,
on the consecutive days there are 0, 0 + 1, 0 + 1 + 3, 0 + 1 + 3 + 7, . . . leaves. On day n, the
number of leaves equals

(20 − 1) + (21 − 1) + (22 − 1) + (23 − 1) + · · · + (2n−1 − 1) = (20 + 21 + · · · + 2n−1 ) − n

= (2n − 1) − n.

It follows that the total number of leaves at the end of day 10 equals 210 − 11 = 1013.
B1. 35 For any three consecutive numbers a, b, c from Julia’s sequence, we know that
c = 2b − a. In other words: c − b = b − a. This means that the difference between pairs of
consecutive numbers is constant throughout the sequence. Let this difference be d. Hence, if x is
the first number from the sequence, then the sequence reads x, x + d, x + 2d, x + 3d, . . .. The
second number from the sequence equals 55 = x + d, and the 100th number equals 2015 = x + 99d.
We see that 2015 − 55 = 98d, and hence d = 1960
98 = 20. Using this, we see that 55 = x + 20. We
conclude that the first number from Julia’s sequence is x = 35.
D
B2. 48◦ The angle at D equals the angle at C, because
57◦
CBD is an isosceles triangle (with apex B). Angle DBC equals
180◦ −2×57◦ = 66◦ . Hence, also angle ABE is 66 degrees. Since A C
triangle BAE is isosceles (apex A), the angle at E is 66 degrees ? B

as well. The angle at A is therefore equal to 180◦ − 2 × 66◦ = 48◦ . E

B3. 70 Let n = abcd be a four digit number, where a is nonzero. We write 2n = ef ghi,
where the first digit, e, may be equal to 0. First observe the following.

• Digit i is even. Indeed it is equal to 2d or to 2d − 10.

• Digit h is even if d 6 4, and odd if d > 5.
• Digit g is even if c 6 4, and odd if c > 5.
• Digit f is even if b 6 4, and odd if b > 5.
• Digit e is even if a 6 4, and odd if a > 5.

The number 2n is therefore alternating if and only if d > 5, c 6 4, b > 5, and a 6 4. In order to
count the number of super alternating numbers, we consider two cases.

1. Digits a, c are even and b, d are odd. We can choose a from 2, 4 (as 0 is not allowed),
choose b from 5, 7, 9, choose c from 0, 2, 4, and choose d from 5, 7, 9. This yields a total of
2 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 54 possibilities.
2. Digits b, d are even and a, c are odd. We can choose a from 1, 3, choose b from 6, 8, choose c
from 1, 3, and choose d from 6, 8. This yields 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 16 possibilities.

The total number of super alternating numbers is therefore 54 + 16 = 70.

B4. 66 For convenience, we number the students in the order in which they descend the
mountain. Student 20, who is last to go down, has seen all numbers from 1 to 20 exactly once,
receiving a card bearing 1 in the last round. In round 19, student 20 must have received a card
bearing 2 (as there were only two cards that round). In round 18, he/she must have received a
card bearing 3, and so on, until the first round, in which he/she received a card with number 20.
Now we consider student 19, who received a 1 in round 19. In round 18, student 19 must have
received a 2 (the card bearing 3 was taken by student 20). In round 17, he/she must have
received a 3 (student 20 got the card bearing 4, and numbers 1 and 2 are ruled out). This way,
we see that student 19 received cards bearing numbers 1, 2, 3, . . . , 19 in rounds 19, 18, 17, . . . , 1,
respectively.
Continuing this line of argumentation, we see that student n received cards with numbers
1, 2, 3, . . . , n in rounds n, n − 1, n − 2, . . . , 1, respectively. Since Sara got a card with 11 in
round 1, she must be student number 11. The sum of the numbers on her cards is therefore
11 + 10 + 9 + · · · = 2 + 1 = 66.

c 2015 Stichting Nederlandse Wiskunde Olympiade