Define a $good~word$ as a sequence of letters that consists only of the letters $A,$ $B,$ and $C$ $-$ some of these letters may not appear in the sequence $-$ and in which $A$ is never immediately followed by $B,$ $B$ is never immediately followed by $C,$ and $C$ is never immediately followed by $A.$ How many seven-letter good words are there?

[u]Round 1[/u] [b]p1.[/b] Alice and Bob compiled a list of movies that exactly one of them saw, then Cindy and Dale did the same. To their surprise, these two lists were identical. Prove that if Alice and Cindy list all movies that exactly one of them saw, this list will be identical to the one for Bob and Dale. [b]p2.[/b] Several whole rounds of cheese were stored in a pantry. One night some rats sneaked in and consumed $10$ of the rounds, each rat eating an equal portion. Some were satisfied, but $7$ greedy rats returned the next night to finish the remaining rounds. Their portions on the second night happened to be half as large as on the first night. How many rounds of cheese were initially in the pantry? [b]p3.[/b] You have $100$ pancakes, one with a single blueberry, one with two blueberries, one with three blueberries, and so on. The pancakes are stacked in a random order. Count the number of blueberries in the top pancake, and call that number N. Pick up the stack of the top N pancakes, and flip it upside down. Prove that if you repeat this counting-and-flipping process, the pancake with one blueberry will eventually end up at the top of the stack. [b]p4.[/b] There are two lemonade stands along the $4$-mile-long circular road that surrounds Sour Lake. $100$ children live in houses along the road. Every day, each child buys a glass of lemonade from the stand that is closest to her house, as long as she does not have to walk more than one mile along the road to get there. A stand's [u]advantage [/u] is the difference between the number of glasses it sells and the number of glasses its competitor sells. The stands are positioned such that neither stand can increase its advantage by moving to a new location, if the other stand stays still. What is the maximum number of kids who can't buy lemonade (because both stands are too far away)? [b]p5.[/b] Merlin uses several spells to move around his $64$-room castle. When Merlin casts a spell in a room, he ends up in a different room of the castle. Where he ends up only depends on the room where he cast the spell and which spell he cast. The castle has the following magic property: if a sequence of spells brings Merlin from some room $A$ back to room $A$, then from any other room $B$ in the castle, that same sequence brings Merlin back to room $B$. Prove that there are two different rooms $X$ and $Y$ and a sequence of spells that both takes Merlin from $X$ to $Y$ and from $Y$ to $X$. [u]Round 2[/u] [b]p6.[/b] Captains Hook, Line, and Sinker are deciding where to hide their treasure. It is currently buried at the $X$ in the map below, near the lairs of the three pirates. Each pirate would prefer that the treasure be located as close to his own lair as possible. You are allowed to propose a new location for the treasure to the pirates. If at least two out of the three pirates prefer the new location (because it moves closer to their own lairs), then the treasure will be moved there. Assuming the pirates’ lairs form an acute triangle, is it always possible to propose a sequence of new locations so that the treasure eventually ends up in your backyard (wherever that is)? [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/c/c/a9e65624d97dec612ef06f8b30be5540cfc362.png[/img] [b]p7.[/b] Homer went on a Donut Diet for the month of May ($31$ days). He ate at least one donut every day of the month. However, over any stretch of $7$ consecutive days, he did not eat more than $13$ donuts. Prove that there was some stretch of consecutive days over which Homer ate exactly $30$ donuts. PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

For each positive integer $k$, let $S_k$ denote the increasing arithmetic sequence of integers whose first term is $1$ and whose common difference is $k$. For example, $S_3$ is the sequence $1,4,7,10,...$. For how many values of $k$ does $S_k$ contain the term $2005$?

The sequence of integers an is given by $a_0 = 0, a_n = p(a_n-1)$, where $p(x)$ is a polynomial whose coefficients are all positive integers. Show that for any two positive integers $m, k$ with greatest common divisor $d$, the greatest common divisor of $a_m$ and $a_k$ is $a_d$.

Define the function $f:(0,1)\to (0,1)$ by \[\displaystyle f(x) = \left\{ \begin{array}{lr} x+\frac 12 & \text{if}\ \ x < \frac 12\\ x^2 & \text{if}\ \ x \ge \frac 12 \end{array} \right.\] Let $a$ and $b$ be two real numbers such that $0 < a < b < 1$. We define the sequences $a_n$ and $b_n$ by $a_0 = a, b_0 = b$, and $a_n = f( a_{n -1})$, $b_n = f (b_{n -1} )$ for $n > 0$. Show that there exists a positive integer $n$ such that \[(a_n - a_{n-1})(b_n-b_{n-1})<0.\] [i]Proposed by Denmark[/i]

Let $a_1, a_2,\dots$ be an infinite sequence of positive real numbers such that for each positive integer $n$ we have \[\frac{a_1+a_2+\cdots+a_n}n\geq\sqrt{\frac{a_1^2+a_2^2+\cdots+a_{n+1}^2}{n+1}}.\] Prove that the sequence $a_1,a_2,\dots$ is constant. [i]Proposed by Alex Zhai[/i]

The sequence $\{a_{n}\}_{n \ge 1}$ is defined by \[a_{1}=1, \; a_{n+1}=2a_{n}+\sqrt{3a_{n}^{2}+1}.\] Show that $a_{n}$ is an integer for every $n$.

Let $a\in\left[ \tfrac{1}{2},\ \tfrac{3}{2}\right]$ be a real number. Sequences $(u_n),\ (v_n)$ are defined as follows: $$u_n=\frac{3}{2^{n+1}}\cdot (-1)^{\lfloor2^{n+1}a\rfloor},\ v_n=\frac{3}{2^{n+1}}\cdot (-1)^{n+\lfloor 2^{n+1}a\rfloor}.$$ a. Prove that $${{({{u}_{0}}+{{u}_{1}}+\cdots +{{u}_{2018}})}^{2}}+{{({{v}_{0}}+{{v}_{1}}+\cdots +{{v}_{2018}})}^{2}}\le 72{{a}^{2}}-48a+10+\frac{2}{{{4}^{2019}}}.$$ b. Find all values of $a$ in the equality case.

The sequence of positive integers $a_1$, $a_2$,$...$ is such that for each $n = 1$,$2$, $...$ the quadratic equation $$a_{n+2}x^2 + a_{n+1}x+ a_n = 0$$ has a real root. Can the sequence consist of (a) $10 $ terms, (b) an infinite number of terms? (A Shapovalov)

Let $\{a_n\}$ be a sequence satisfying: $a_1=1$ and $a_{n+1}=2a_n+n\cdot (1+2^n),(n=1,2,3,\cdots)$. Determine the general term formula of $\{a_n\}$.

You are given a sequence of $58$ terms; each term has the form $P+n$ where $P$ stands for the product $2 \times 3 \times 5 \times... \times 61$ of all prime numbers less than or equal to $61$, and $n$ takes, successively, the values $2, 3, 4, ...., 59$. let $N$ be the number of primes appearing in this sequence. Then $N$ is: $ \textbf{(A)}\ 0\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 16\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 17\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 57\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 58 $

The consecutive angles of a trapezoid form an arithmetic sequence. If the smallest angle is $75^\circ$, then the largest angle is $\textbf{(A) }95^\circ\qquad \textbf{(B) }100^\circ\qquad \textbf{(C) }105^\circ\qquad \textbf{(D) }110^\circ\qquad \textbf{(E) }115^\circ$

$a_1,a_2,a_3,...$ is a monotone increasing sequence of natural numbers. It is known that for any $k, a_{a_k} = 3k$. a) Find $a_{100}$. b) Find $a_{1983}$. (A Andjans, Riga) PS. (a) for Juniors, (b) for Seniors

Square $ABCD$ in the coordinate plane has vertices at the points $A(1,1), B(-1,1), C(-1,-1),$ and $D(1,-1).$ Consider the following four transformations: [list=] [*]$L,$ a rotation of $90^{\circ}$ counterclockwise around the origin; [*]$R,$ a rotation of $90^{\circ}$ clockwise around the origin; [*]$H,$ a reflection across the $x$-axis; and [*]$V,$ a reflection across the $y$-axis. [/list] Each of these transformations maps the squares onto itself, but the positions of the labeled vertices will change. For example, applying $R$ and then $V$ would send the vertex $A$ at $(1,1)$ to $(-1,-1)$ and would send the vertex $B$ at $(-1,1)$ to itself. How many sequences of $20$ transformations chosen from $\{L, R, H, V\}$ will send all of the labeled vertices back to their original positions? (For example, $R, R, V, H$ is one sequence of $4$ transformations that will send the vertices back to their original positions.) $\textbf{(A)}\ 2^{37} \qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 3\cdot 2^{36} \qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 2^{38} \qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 3\cdot 2^{37} \qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 2^{39}$

[b]p4[/b] Define the sequence ${a_n}$ as follows: 1) $a_1 = -1$, and 2) for all $n \ge 2$, $a_n = 1 + 2 + . . . + n - (n + 1)$. For example, $a_3 = 1+2+3-4 = 2$. Find the largest possible value of $k$ such that $a_k+a_{k+1} = a_{k+2}$. [b]p5[/b] The taxicab distance between two points $(a, b)$ and $(c, d)$ on the coordinate plane is $|c-a|+|d-b|$. Given that the taxicab distance between points $A$ and $B$ is $8$ and that the length of $AB$ is $k$, find the minimum possible value of $k^2$. [b]p6[/b] For any two-digit positive integer $\overline{AB}$, let $f(\overline{AB}) = \overline{AB}-A\cdot B$, or in other words, the result of subtracting the product of its digits from the integer itself. For example, $f(\overline{72}) = 72-7\cdot 2 = 58$. Find the maximum possible $n$ such that there exist distinct two-digit integers$ \overline{XY}$ and $\overline{WZ}$ such that $f(\overline{XY} ) = f(\overline{WZ}) = n$.