Olympiad problems

1985 IMO Longlists, 41

A set of $1985$ points is distributed around the circumference of a circle and each of the points is marked with $1$ or $-1$. A point is called “good” if the partial sums that can be formed by starting at that point and proceeding around the circle for any distance in either direction are all strictly positive. Show that if the number of points marked with $-1$ is less than $662$, there must be at least one good point.

2001 IMO, 3

Twenty-one girls and twenty-one boys took part in a mathematical competition. It turned out that each contestant solved at most six problems, and for each pair of a girl and a boy, there was at least one problem that was solved by both the girl and the boy. Show that there is a problem that was solved by at least three girls and at least three boys.

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1999 IMO Shortlist, 6

Suppose that every integer has been given one of the colours red, blue, green or yellow. Let $x$ and $y$ be odd integers so that $|x| \neq |y|$. Show that there are two integers of the same colour whose difference has one of the following values: $x,y,x+y$ or $x-y$.

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1964 IMO, 4

Seventeen people correspond by mail with one another-each one with all the rest. In their letters only three different topics are discussed. each pair of correspondents deals with only one of these topics. Prove that there are at least three people who write to each other about the same topic.

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1997 South africa National Olympiad, 6

Six points are connected in pairs by lines, each of which is either red or blue. Every pair of points is joined. Determine whether there must be a closed path having four sides all of the same colour. (A path is closed if it begins and ends at the same point.)

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2004 China Team Selection Test, 2

Twenty-one girls and twenty-one boys took part in a mathematical competition. It turned out that each contestant solved at most six problems, and for each pair of a girl and a boy, there was at least one problem that was solved by both the girl and the boy. Show that there is a problem that was solved by at least three girls and at least three boys.

ramsey theory matrix extremal combinatorics combinatorics Ramsey theory casework extremal principle graph modeling matrices pigeonhole principle