Problems

Arjun and Beth play a game in which they take turns removing one brick or two adjacent bricks from one "wall" among a set of several walls of bricks, with gaps possibly creating new walls. The walls are one brick tall. For example, a set of walls of sizes $4$ and $2$ can be changed into any of the following by one …

When a certain unfair die is rolled, an even number is $3$ times as likely to appear as an odd number. The die is rolled twice. What is the probability that the sum of the numbers rolled is even?

Each of $6$ balls is randomly and independently painted either black or white with equal probability. What is the probability that every ball is different in color from more than half of the other $5$ balls?

A farmer's rectangular field is partitioned into $2$ by $2$ grid of $4$ rectangular sections as shown in the figure. In each section the farmer will plant one crop: corn, wheat, soybeans, or potatoes. The farmer does not want to grow corn and wheat in any two sections that share a border, and the farmer does not want …

Each of the $20$ balls is tossed independently and at random into one of the $5$ bins. Let $p$ be the probability that some bin ends up with $3$ balls, another with $5$ balls, and the other three with $4$ balls each. Let $q$ be the probability that every bin ends up with $4$ balls. What is $\frac{p}{q}$ ?

Each of the $12$ edges of a cube is labeled $0$ or $1$ . Two labelings are considered different even if one can be obtained from the other by a sequence of one or more rotations and/or reflections. For how many such labelings is the sum of the labels on the edges of each of the $6$ faces of the cube equal to $2$ ?

Una rolls $6$ standard $6$ -sided dice simultaneously and calculates the product of the $6{ }$ numbers obtained. What is the probability that the product is divisible by $4?$

Five balls are arranged around a circle. Chris chooses two adjacent balls at random and interchanges them. Then Silva does the same, with her choice of adjacent balls to interchange being independent of Chris's. What is the expected number of balls that occupy their original positions after these two successive …

In a particular game, each of $4$ players rolls a standard $6{ }$ -sided die. The winner is the player who rolls the highest number. If there is a tie for the highest roll, those involved in the tie will roll again and this process will continue until one player wins. Hugo is one of the players in this game. What is …

Regular polygons with $5,6,7,$ and $8$ sides are inscribed in the same circle. No two of the polygons share a vertex, and no three of their sides intersect at a common point. At how many points inside the circle do two of their sides intersect?

Each of the $5{ }$ sides and the $5{ }$ diagonals of a regular pentagon are randomly and independently colored red or blue with equal probability. What is the probability that there will be a triangle whose vertices are among the vertices of the pentagon such that all of its sides have the same color?

A cube is constructed from $4$ white unit cubes and $4$ blue unit cubes. How many different ways are there to construct the $2 \times 2 \times 2$ cube using these smaller cubes? (Two constructions are considered the same if one can be rotated to match the other.)

How many $4$ -digit positive integers (that is, integers between $1000$ and $9999$ , inclusive) having only even digits are divisible by $5?$

A frog sitting at the point $(1, 2)$ begins a sequence of jumps, where each jump is parallel to one of the coordinate axes and has length $1$ , and the direction of each jump (up, down, right, or left) is chosen independently at random. The sequence ends when the frog reaches a side of the square with vertices …

A point is chosen at random within the square in the coordinate plane whose vertices are $(0, 0), (2020, 0), (2020, 2020),$ and $(0, 2020)$ . The probability that the point is within $d$ units of a lattice point is $\tfrac{1}{2}$ . (A point $(x, y)$ is a lattice point if $x$ and $y$ are both integers.) What is $d$ to …

As shown in the figure below, a regular dodecahedron (the polyhedron consisting of $12$ congruent regular pentagonal faces) floats in empty space with two horizontal faces. Note that there is a ring of five slanted faces adjacent to the top face, and a ring of five slanted faces adjacent to the bottom face. How many …

Jason rolls three fair standard six-sided dice. Then he looks at the rolls and chooses a subset of the dice (possibly empty, possibly all three dice) to reroll. After rerolling, he wins if and only if the sum of the numbers face up on the three dice is exactly $7.$ Jason always plays to optimize his chances of winning. …

How many distinguishable arrangements are there of $1$ brown tile, $1$ purple tile, $2$ green tiles, and $3$ yellow tiles in a row from left to right? (Tiles of the same color are indistinguishable.)

Ms. Carr asks her students to read any $5$ of the $10$ books on a reading list. Harold randomly selects $5$ books from this list, and Betty does the same. What is the probability that there are exactly $2$ books that they both select?

Bela and Jenn play the following game on the closed interval $[0, n]$ of the real number line, where $n$ is a fixed integer greater than $4$ . They take turns playing, with Bela going first. At his first turn, Bela chooses any real number in the interval $[0, n]$ . Thereafter, the player whose turn it is chooses a real …

There are $10$ people standing equally spaced around a circle. Each person knows exactly $3$ of the other $9$ people: the $2$ people standing next to him or her, as well as the person directly across the circle. How many ways are there for the $10$ people to split up into $5$ pairs so that the members of each pair know …

An urn contains one red ball and one blue ball. A box of extra red and blue balls lies nearby. George performs the following operation four times: he draws a ball from the urn at random and then takes a ball of the same color from the box and returns those two matching balls to the urn. After the four iterations the …

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: $\quad\bullet\qquad$ $L,$ a rotation of $90^{\circ}$ counterclockwise around the origin; $\quad\bullet\qquad$ $R,$ a rotation of $90^{\circ}$ clockwise around the …

Let $D(n)$ denote the number of ways of writing the positive integer $n$ as a product $$n = f_1\cdot f_2\cdots f_k,$$ where $k\ge1$ , the $f_i$ are integers strictly greater than $1$ , and the order in which the factors are listed matters (that is, two representations that differ only in the order of the factors are …

A rectangular floor that is $10$ feet wide and $17$ feet long is tiled with $170$ one-foot square tiles. A bug walks from one corner to the opposite corner in a straight line. Including the first and the last tile, how many tiles does the bug visit?