Olympiad problems

2001 Switzerland Team Selection Test, 10

Prove that every $1000$-element subset $M$ of the set $\{0,1,...,2001\}$ contains either a power of two or two distinct numbers whose sum is a power of two.

2012 India Regional Mathematical Olympiad, 4

Tags: subset , combinatorics , combinatorics of set

Let $X=\{1,2,3,...,12\}$. Find the number of pairs of $\{A,B\}$ such that $A\subseteq X, B\subseteq X, A\ne B$ and $A\cap B=\{2,3,5,7,8\}$.

1999 Ukraine Team Selection Test, 3

Tags: subset , combinatorics , max

Let $m,n$ be positive integers with $m \le n$, and let $F$ be a family of $m$-element subsets of $\{1,2,...,n\}$ satisfying $A \cap B \ne \varnothing$ for all $A,B \in F$. Determine the maximum possible number of elements in $F$.

1994 Italy TST, 4

Tags: subset , algebra , set

Let $X$ be a set of $n$ elements and $k$ be a positive integer. Consider the family $S_k$ of all $k$-tuples $(E_1,...,E_k)$ with $E_i \subseteq X$ for each $i$. Evaluate the sums $\sum_{(E_1,...,E_k) \in S_k }|E_1 \cap ... \cap E_k|$ and $\sum_{(E_1,...,E_k) \in S_k }|E_1 \cup ... \cup E_k|$

2005 National Olympiad First Round, 24

Tags: combinatorics , subset , set

There are $20$ people in a certain community. $10$ of them speak English, $10$ of them speak German, and $10$ of them speak French. We call a [i]committee[/i] to a $3$-subset of this community if there is at least one who speaks English, at least one who speaks German, and at least one who speaks French in this subset. At most how many commitees are there in this community? $ \textbf{(A)}\ 120 \qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 380 \qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 570 \qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 1020 \qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 1140 $

2018 Thailand TST, 2

Tags: number theory , combinatorics , subset , set

For finite sets $A,M$ such that $A \subseteq M \subset \mathbb{Z}^+$, we define $$f_M(A)=\{x\in M \mid x\text{ is divisible by an odd number of elements of }A\}.$$ Given a positive integer $k$, we call $M$ [i]k-colorable[/i] if it is possible to color the subsets of $M$ with $k$ colors so that for any $A \subseteq M$, if $f_M(A)\neq A$ then $f_M(A)$ and $A$ have different colors. Determine the least positive integer $k$ such that every finite set $M \subset\mathbb{Z}^+$ is k-colorable.

2006 Thailand Mathematical Olympiad, 16

Tags: combinatorics , subset , set

Find the number of triples of sets $(A, B, C)$ such that $A \cup B \cup C = \{1, 2, 3, ... , 2549\}$

2007 Indonesia TST, 4

Tags: combinatorics , representation , set theory , subset

Given a collection of sets $X = \{A_1, A_2, ..., A_n\}$. A set $\{a_1, a_2, ..., a_n\}$ is called a single representation of $X$ if $a_i \in A_i$ for all i. Let $|S| = mn$, $S = A_1\cup A_2 \cup ... \cup A_n = B_1 \cup B_2 \cup ... \cup B_n$ with $|A_i| = |B_i| = m$ for all $i$. Prove that $S = C_1 \cup C_2 \cup ... \cup C_n$ where for every $i, C_i $ is a single represenation for $\{A_j\}_{j=1}^n $and $\{B_j\}_{j=1}^n$.

1986 Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik, 4

Tags: combinatorics , subset

Given the finite set $M$ with $m$ elements and $1986$ further sets $M_1,M_2,M_3,...,M_{1986}$, each of which contains more than $\frac{m}{2}$ elements from $M$ . Show that no more than ten elements need to be marked in order for any set $M_i$ ($i =1, 2, 3,..., 1986$) contains at least one marked element.

2015 Irish Math Olympiad, 7

Tags: combinatorics , subset , set

Let $n > 1$ be an integer and $\Omega=\{1,2,...,2n-1,2n\}$ the set of all positive integers that are not larger than $2n$. A nonempty subset $S$ of $\Omega$ is called [i]sum-free[/i] if, for all elements $x, y$ belonging to $S, x + y$ does not belong to $S$. We allow $x = y$ in this condition. Prove that $\Omega$ has more than $2^n$ distinct [i]sum-free[/i] subsets.

1997 Pre-Preparation Course Examination, 1

Tags: combinatorics , additive combinatorics , additive number theory , extremal combinatorics , subset

Let $ k,m,n$ be integers such that $ 1 < n \leq m \minus{} 1 \leq k.$ Determine the maximum size of a subset $ S$ of the set $ \{1,2,3, \ldots, k\minus{}1,k\}$ such that no $ n$ distinct elements of $ S$ add up to $ m.$

2007 Thailand Mathematical Olympiad, 13

Tags: combinatorics , subset

Let $S = \{1, 2,..., 8\}$. How many ways are there to select two disjoint subsets of $S$?

2007 Postal Coaching, 4

Tags: coloring , combinatorics , subset

Let $A_1,A_2,...,A_n$ be $n$ finite subsets of a set $X, n \ge 2$, such that (i) $|A_i| \ge 2, 1 \le i \le n$, (ii) $ |A_i \cap A_j | \ne 1, j \le i < j \le n$. Prove that the elements of $A_1 \cup A_2 \cup ... \cup A_n$ may be colored with $2$ colors so that no $A_i$ is colored by the same color.

2021 Junior Balkan Team Selection Tests - Romania, P2

Tags: number theory , subset

For any non-empty subset $X$ of $M=\{1,2,3,...,2021\}$, let $a_X$ be the sum of the greatest and smallest elements of $X$. Determine the arithmetic mean of all the values of $a_X$, as $X$ covers all the non-empty subsets of $M$.

2002 Brazil National Olympiad, 1

Tags: number theory , perfect cube , perfect power , sum , perfect square , subset

Show that there is a set of $2002$ distinct positive integers such that the sum of one or more elements of the set is never a square, cube, or higher power.

1982 Spain Mathematical Olympiad, 7

Tags: algebra , subset

Let $S$ be the subset of rational numbers that can be written in the form $a/b$, where $a$ is any integer and $b$ is an odd integer. Does the sum of two of its elements belong to the $S$ ? And the product? Are there elements in $S$ whose inverse belongs to $S$ ?

1999 Austrian-Polish Competition, 1

Tags: subset , combinatorics

Find the number of $6$-tuples $(A_1,A_2,...,A_6)$ of subsets of $M = \{1,..., n\}$ (not necessarily different) such that each element of $M$ belongs to zero, three, or six of the subsets $A_1,...,A_6$.

2008 Thailand Mathematical Olympiad, 9

Tags: combinatorics , subset

Find the number of pairs of sets $(A, B)$ satisfying $A \subseteq B \subseteq \{1, 2, ...,10\}$

2001 Dutch Mathematical Olympiad, 5

Tags: combinatorics , subset , even , odd

If you take a subset of $4002$ numbers from the whole numbers $1$ to $6003$, then there is always a subset of $2001$ numbers within that subset with the following property: If you order the $2001$ numbers from small to large, the numbers are alternately even and odd (or odd and even). Prove this.

2015 Indonesia MO Shortlist, C7

Tags: combinatorics , sum , subset

Show that there is a subset of $A$ from $\{1,2, 3,... , 2014\}$ such that : (i) $|A| = 12$ (ii) for each coloring number in $A$ with red or white , we can always find some numbers colored in $A$ whose sum is $2015$.

2012 Switzerland - Final Round, 5

Tags: combinatorics , subset

Let n be a natural number. Let $A_1, A_2, . . . , A_k$ be distinct $3$-element subsets of $\{1, 2, . . . , n\}$ such that $|A_i \cap A_j | \ne 1$ for all $1 \le i, j \le k$. Determine all $n$ for which there are $n$ such that these subsets exist. [hide=original wording of last sentence]Bestimme alle n, fur die es n solche Teilmengen gibt.[/hide]

1978 Swedish Mathematical Competition, 5

Tags: subset , partition , combinatorics

$k > 1$ is fixed. Show that for $n$ sufficiently large for every partition of $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$ into $k$ disjoint subsets we can find $a \neq b$ such that $a$ and $b$ are in the same subset and $a+1$ and $b+1$ are in the same subset. What is the smallest $n$ for which this is true?

2016 India PRMO, 14

Tags: minimum , set , subset

Find the minimum value of $m$ such that any $m$-element subset of the set of integers $\{1,2,...,2016\}$ contains at least two distinct numbers $a$ and $b$ which satisfy $|a - b|\le 3$.

1998 IMO Shortlist, 4

Tags: combinatorics , set systems , subset

Let $U=\{1,2,\ldots ,n\}$, where $n\geq 3$. A subset $S$ of $U$ is said to be [i]split[/i] by an arrangement of the elements of $U$ if an element not in $S$ occurs in the arrangement somewhere between two elements of $S$. For example, 13542 splits $\{1,2,3\}$ but not $\{3,4,5\}$. Prove that for any $n-2$ subsets of $U$, each containing at least 2 and at most $n-1$ elements, there is an arrangement of the elements of $U$ which splits all of them.

1974 Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik, 3

Tags: combinatorics , counting , subset

Let $M$ be a set with $n$ elements. How many pairs $(A, B)$ of subsets of $M$ are there such that $A$ is a subset of $B?$