The numbers $1, 2, ..., 2012$ are written on a blackboard, in some order, each of them exactly once. Between every two neighboring numbers the absolute value of their difference is written and the original numbers are deleted. This process is repeated until only a number remains on the board. What is the largest number that can stay on the board?

[b]p1.[/b] Fun facts! We know that $1008^2-1007^2 = 1008+1007$ and $1009^2-1008^2 = 1009+1008$. Now compute the following: $$1010^2 - 1009^2 - 1.$$ [b]p2.[/b] Let $m$ be the smallest positive multiple of $2018$ such that the fraction $m/2019$ can be simplified. What is the number $m$? [b]p3.[/b] Given that $n$ satisfies the following equation $$n + 3n + 5n + 7n + 9n = 200,$$ find $n$. [b]p4.[/b] Grace and Somya each have a collection of coins worth a dollar. Both Grace and Somya have quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. Serena then observes that Grace has the least number of coins possible to make one dollar and Somya has the most number of coins possible. If Grace has $G$ coins and Somya has $S$ coins, what is $G + S$? [b]p5.[/b] What is the ones digit of $2018^{2018}$? [b]p6.[/b] Kaitlyn plays a number game. Each time when Kaitlyn has a number, if it is even, she divides it by $2$, and if it is odd, she multiplies it by $5$ and adds $1$. Kaitlyn then takes the resulting number and continues the process until she reaches $1$. For example, if she begins with $3$, she finds the sequence of $6$ numbers to be $$3, 3 \cdot 5 + 1 = 16, 16/2 = 8, 8/2 = 4, 4/2 = 2, 2/2 = 1.$$ If Kaitlyn's starting number is $51$, how many numbers are in her sequence, including the starting number and the number $1$? [b]p7.[/b] Andrew likes both geometry and piano. His piano has $88$ keys, $x$ of which are white and $y$ of which are black. Each white key has area $3$ and each black key has area $11$. If the keys of his piano have combined area $880$, how many black keys does he have? [b]p8.[/b] A six-sided die contains the numbers $1$, $2$, $3$, $4$, $5$, and $6$ on its faces. If numbers on opposite faces of a die always sum to $7$, how many distinct dice are possible? (Two dice are considered the same if one can be rotated to obtain the other.) [b]p9.[/b] In $\vartriangle ABC$, $AB$ is $12$ and $AC$ is $15$. Alex draws the angle bisector of $BAC$, $AD$, such that $D$ is on $BC$. If $CD$ is $10$, then the area of $\vartriangle ABC$ can be expressed in the form $\frac{m \sqrt{n}}{p}$ where $m, p$ are relatively prime and $n$ is not divisible by the square of any prime. Find $m + n + p$. [b]p10.[/b] Find the smallest positive integer that leaves a remainder of $2$ when divided by $5$, a remainder of $3$ when divided by $6$, a remainder of $4$ when divided by $7$, and a remainder of $5$ when divided by $8$. [b]p11.[/b] Chris has a bag with $4$ marbles. Each minute, Chris randomly selects a marble out of the bag and flips a coin. If the coin comes up heads, Chris puts the marble back in the bag, while if the coin comes up tails, Chris sets the marble aside. What is the expected number of seconds it will take Chris to empty the bag? [b]p12.[/b] A real fixed point $x$ of a function $f(x)$ is a real number such that $f(x) = x$. Find the absolute value of the product of the real fixed points of the function $f(x) = x^4 + x - 16$. [b]p13.[/b] A triangle with angles $30^o$, $75^o$, $75^o$ is inscribed in a circle with radius $1$. The area of the triangle can be expressed as $\frac{a+\sqrt{b}}{c}$ where $b$ is not divisible by the square of any prime. Find $a + b + c$. [b]p14.[/b] Dora and Charlotte are playing a game involving flipping coins. On a player's turn, she first chooses a probability of the coin landing heads between $\frac14$ and $\frac34$ , and the coin magically flips heads with that probability. The player then flips this coin until the coin lands heads, at which point her turn ends. The game ends the first time someone flips heads on an odd-numbered flip. The last player to flip the coin wins. If both players are playing optimally and Dora goes first, let the probability that Charlotte win the game be $\frac{a}{b}$ . Find $a \cdot b$. [b]p15.[/b] Jonny is trying to sort a list of numbers in ascending order by swapping pairs of numbers. For example, if he has the list $1$, $4$, $3$, $2$, Jonny would swap $2$ and $4$ to obtain $1$, $2$, $3$, $4$. If Jonny is given a random list of $400$ distinct numbers, let $x$ be the expected minimum number of swaps he needs. Compute $\left \lfloor \frac{x}{20} \right \rfloor$. PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

[b]p1.[/b] A rectangle $ABCD$ is cut from a piece of paper and folded along a straight line so that the diagonally opposite vertices $A$ and $C$ coincide. Find the length of the resulting crease in terms of the length ($\ell$) and width ($w$) of the rectangle. (Justify your answer.) [b]p2.[/b] The residents of Andromeda use only bills of denominations $\$3 $and $\$5$ . All payments are made exactly, with no change given. What whole-dollar payments are not possible? (Justify your answer.) [b]p3.[/b] A set consists of $21$ objects with (positive) weights $w_1, w_2, w_3, ..., w_{21}$ . Whenever any subset of $10$ objects is selected, then there is a subset consisting of either $10$ or $11$ of the remaining objects such that the two subsets have equal fotal weights. Find all possible weights for the objects. (Justify your answer.) [b]p4.[/b] Let $P(x) = x^3 + x^2 - 1$ and $Q(x) = x^3 - x - 1$ . Given that $r$ and $s$ are two distinct solutions of $P(x) = 0$ , prove that $rs$ is a solution of $Q(x) = 0$ [b]p5.[/b] Given: $\vartriangle ABC$ with points $A_1$ and $A_2$ on $BC$ , $B_1$ and $B_2$ on $CA$, and $C_1$ and $C_2$ on $AB$. $A_1 , A_2, B_1 , B_2$ are on a circle, $B_1 , B_2, C_1 , C_2$ are on a circle, and $C_1 , C_2, A_1 , A_2$ are on a circle. The centers of these circles lie in the interior of the triangle. Prove: All six points $A_1$ , $A_2$, $B_1$, $B_2$, $C_1$, $C_2$ are on a circle. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/7/2/2b99ddf4f258232c910c062e4190d8617af6fa.png[/img] PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

An $n$-mino is a connected figure made by connecting $n$ $1 \times 1 $ squares. Two polyminos are the same if moving the first we can reach the second. For a polymino $P$ ,let $|P|$ be the number of $1 \times 1$ squares in it and $\partial P$ be number of squares out of $P$ such that each of the squares have at least on edge in common with a square from $P$. (a) Prove that for every $x \in (0,1)$:\[\sum_P x^{|P|}(1-x)^{\partial P}=1\] The sum is on all different polyminos. (b) Prove that for every polymino $P$, $\partial P \leq 2|P|+2$ (c) Prove that the number of $n$-minos is less than $6.75^n$. [i]Proposed by Kasra Alishahi[/i]

Given some colored balls (at least three different colors) and at least three boxes. The balls are put into the boxes so that no box is empty and we cannot find three balls of different colors which are in three different boxes. Show that there is a box such that all the balls in all the other boxes have the same color.

The natural numbers from $100$ to $999$ are written on separate cards. They are gathered in one pile with their numbers down in arbitrary order. Let us open them in sequence and divide into $10$ piles according to the least significant digit. The first pile will contain cards with $0$ at the end, ... , the tenth -- with $9$. Then we shall gather $10$ piles in one pile, the first -- down, then the second, ... and the tenth -- up. Let us repeat the procedure twice more, but the next time we shall divide cards according to the second digit, and the last time -- to the most significant one. What will be the order of the cards in the obtained pile?

Two players in turn paint cells of the $7\times7$ table each using own color. A player can't paint a cell if its row or its column contains a cell painted by the other player. The game stops when one of the players can't make his turn. What maximal number of the cells can remain unpainted when the game stops?

Alan is standing in the middle of a very long straight road. In addition, there is typically British fog. And he lost his bomb somewhere on the street. He doesn't know how far they are from him away or in which direction it is, and could not see it until it would be no more than $10$ meters away from him. Since he wants to be efficient, he only wants to search at most ten times the distance that the bomb was initially away from him. How he was able to to accomplish this? [hide=original wording]Alan steht mitten auf einer sehr langen geraden Straße. Zudem herrscht typisch britischer Nebel und er hat seine Bombe irgendwo auf der Straße verloren. Er weiß nicht, wie weit sie von ihm entfernt ist oder in welcher Richtung sie liegt, und k¨onnte sie auch erst sehen, wenn sie h¨ochstens 10 Meter von ihm entfernt w¨are. Da er effizient sein will, m¨ochte er maximal eine zehnmal so hohe Distanz auf der Suche zuru¨cklegen, wie die Bombe anfangs von ihm entfernt war. Wie k¨onnte er dies bewerkstelligen¿[/hide]

We call [i]word [/i] a sequence of letters $\overline {l_1l_2...l_n}, n\ge 1$ . A [i]word [/i] $\overline {l_1l_2...l_n}, n\ge 1$ is called [i]palindrome [/i] if $l_k=l_{n-k+1}$ , for any $k, 1 \le k \le n$. Consider a [i]word [/i] $X=\overline {l_1l_2...l_{2014}}$ in which $ l_k\in\{A,B\}$ , for any $k, 1\le k \le 2014$. Prove that there are at least $806$ [i]palindrome [/i] [i]words [/i] to ''stick" together to get word $X$.

In how many ways can you choose $ k $ squares on a chessboard $ n \times n $ ( $ k \leq n $) so that no two of the chosen squares lie in the same row or column?

On the vertices of a convex $ n$-gon are put $ m$ stones, $ m > n$. In each move we can choose two stones standing at the same vertex and move them to the two distinct adjacent vertices. After $ N$ moves the number of stones at each vertex was the same as at the beginning. Prove that $ N$ is divisible by $ n$.

Doofy duck buy tangerines in the store. All tangerines have equal weight and are divided into $9$, $10$, $11$, $12$, or $13$ equal wedges, although this cannot be seen without peeling them. How many tangerines does Doofy duck need to buy if he wishes to eat exactly one tangerine’s worth while eating at most one wedge from every tangerine? [i]Doofy duck only peels the tangerines at home.[/i]

The leader of an IMO team chooses positive integers $n$ and $k$ with $n > k$, and announces them to the deputy leader and a contestant. The leader then secretly tells the deputy leader an $n$-digit binary string, and the deputy leader writes down all $n$-digit binary strings which differ from the leader’s in exactly $k$ positions. (For example, if $n = 3$ and $k = 1$, and if the leader chooses $101$, the deputy leader would write down $001, 111$ and $100$.) The contestant is allowed to look at the strings written by the deputy leader and guess the leader’s string. What is the minimum number of guesses (in terms of $n$ and $k$) needed to guarantee the correct answer?

With $21$ tiles, some white and some black, a $3 \times 7$ rectangle is formed. Show that there are always four tokens of the same color located at the vertices of a rectangle.

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Daniel and Merlijn are playing a game. Daniel has $k$ sheets of paper lying next to each other on a table, where $k$ is a positive integer. On each of the sheets, he writes some of the numbers from $1$ up to $n$ (he is allowed to write no number at all, or all numbers). On the back of each of the sheets, he writes down the remaining numbers. Once Daniel is finished, Merlijn can flip some of the sheets of paper (he is allowed to flip no sheet at all, or all sheets). If Merlijn succeeds in making all of the numbers from $1$ up to n visible at least once, then he wins. Determine the smallest $k$ for which Merlijn can always win, regardless of Daniel’s actions.

A plane figure of area $A > n$ is given, where $n$ is a positive integer. Prove that this figure can be placed onto a Cartesian plane so that it covers at least $n+1$ points with integer coordinates.

A parallelepiped is said to be [i]integer [/i] when at least one of its edges measures a integer number of units. We have a group of integer parallelepipeds with which a larger parallelepiped is assembled, which has no holes inside or on its edge. Prove that the assembled parallelepiped is also integer. Example. The following figure shows an assembled parallelepiped with a certain group of integer parallelepipeds. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/3/7/f88954d6fe3a59fd2db6dcee9dddb120012826.png[/img]

For a finite non empty set of primes $P$, let $m(P)$ denote the largest possible number of consecutive positive integers, each of which is divisible by at least one member of $P$. (i) Show that $|P|\le m(P)$, with equality if and only if $\min(P)>|P|$. (ii) Show that $m(P)<(|P|+1)(2^{|P|}-1)$. (The number $|P|$ is the size of set $P$) [i]Dan Schwarz, Romania[/i]

Helena and Luis are going to play a game with two bags with marbles. They play alternately and on each turn they can do one and only one of the following moves: [list] Take out a marble from one bag. Take out a marble from each bag. Take out a marble from one bag and then put it into the other bag. [/list] The player who leaves both bags empty wins the game. Before starting the game, Helena counted out the marbles of each bag and said to Luis: "You may start!", while she thought "I will certainly win...". What are the possible distributions of the marbles in the bags?

$ 20 $ discs of radius $ 1 $ are bounded by a circle of radius $ 10. $ Show that in the interior of this circle is sufficient space to insert $ 7 $ discs of radius $ \frac{1}{3} $ that doesn't touch any other disc. [i]Flavian Georgescu[/i]

Darryl has a six-sided die with faces $1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6$. He knows the die is weighted so that one face comes up with probability $1/2$ and the other five faces have equal probability of coming up. He unfortunately does not know which side is weighted, but he knows each face is equally likely to be the weighted one. He rolls the die $5$ times and gets a $1, 2, 3, 4$ and $5$ in some unspecified order. Compute the probability that his next roll is a $6$.

There are 100 positive integers written on a board. At each step, Alex composes 50 fractions using each number written on the board exactly once, brings these fractions to their irreducible form, and then replaces the 100 numbers on the board with the new numerators and denominators to create 100 new numbers. Find the smallest positive integer $n{}$ such that regardless of the values of the initial 100 numbers, after $n{}$ steps Alex can arrange to have on the board only pairwise coprime numbers.

There are more than $n^2$ stones on the table. Peter and Vasya play a game, Peter starts. Each turn, a player can take any prime number less than $n$ stones, or any multiple of $n$ stones, or $1$ stone. Prove that Peter always can take the last stone (regardless of Vasya's strategy). [i]S Berlov[/i]

a) Given a big square consisting of $7\times 7$ squares. You should mark the centres of $k$ points in such a way, that no quadruple of the marked points will be the vertices of a rectangle with the sides parallel to the sides of the given squares. What is the greatest $k$ such that the problem has solution? b) The same problem for $13\times 13$ square.

Let $m$ and $n$ two given integers. Ana thinks of a pair of real numbers $x$, $y$ and then she tells Beto the values of $x^m+y^m$ and $x^n+y^n$, in this order. Beto's goal is to determine the value of $xy$ using that information. Find all values of $m$ and $n$ for which it is possible for Beto to fulfill his wish, whatever numbers that Ana had chosen.