The Trinidad and Tobago Mathematics Olympiad Training Syllabus

Shavak Sinanan
shavak.sinanan@linacre.oxon.org

April 2013

Contents
1 2 3 Introduction A Brief History of the TTMO The 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 IMO What is the IMO? . . Examination structure Award of medals . . . Regulations . . . . . 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 9 10 11 11 11 11 11 12

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Training Schedule 4.1 First stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Weekly training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Training camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . List 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 of Topics Logical Preliminaries Algebra . . . . . . . Geometry . . . . . . Number Theory . . . Combinatorics . . . .

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Lecture Plan 6.1 JanuaryJune . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 SeptemberDecember . . . . . . 6.3 Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 A note about returning students References and Training Material

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Introduction

A more colourful introduction will appear later. This document attempts to ll the structural lacuna that currently exists in the training regime of The Trinidad and Tobago Mathematics Olympiad (TTMO). To ensure that this document is viewed its proper historical context or something of the sort, its rst section contains a review of the evolution of the TTMO. The following section describes briey the format of the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO), participation in which is the ultimate goal of any aspiring young mathematician. Section 4 outlines the path that a student from Trinidad and Tobago must take in order to compete at the IMO. Sections 5 and 6 form the core of the document. A list of references and training material is provided in Section 7.

A Brief History of the TTMO

Coming soon.

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3.1

The IMO
What is the IMO?

The raison dtre of the TTMO is the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO). Taken from www.imo-ocial.org: The IMO is the World Championship Mathematics Competition for High School students and is held annually in a dierent country. The rst IMO was held in 1959 in Romania, with 7 countries participating. It has gradually expanded to over 100 countries from 5 continents. The IMO Advisory Board ensures that the competition takes place each year and that each host country observes the regulations and traditions of the IMO. 3

The contest is usually held in the second week of July each year, and is open to students below nineteen years of age. A participating country may send a team of at most six students. In addition to the competitors, the delegation must include a Team Leader and a Deputy Team Leader. A country may also elect to have one or more Observers accompany the team. These members usually comprise a subset of those responsible for the training and preparation of the team; their roles are outlined in the General Regulations of the IMO (see Subsection 3.4).

3.2

Examination structure

The examination consists of six problems worth seven points each, the total score thus being forty-two points. The examination is held over two consecutive days; the contestants have four-and-a-half hours to solve three problems per day, with each contestant working individually. The problems are chosen from various areas of High School mathematics, broadly classiable as Algebra, Geometry, Number Theory, and Combinatorics. The solutions of these problems require no knowledge of higher mathematics such as Calculus or Abstract Algebra, and are often short and elementary, yet elusive.

3.3

Award of medals

The total number of medals (gold, silver, and bronze) does not normally exceed half the total number of contestants. The numbers of gold, silver, and bronze medals awarded satisfy (approximately) the ratio 1:2:3 respectively. Special prizes may be awarded for outstanding solutions. Each contestant who has not received a gold, silver, or bronze medal receives a Certicate of Honourable Mention if he or she has received seven points for the solution of at least one problem.

3.4

Regulations

For details regarding the material discussed in Subsections 3.13.3 and much more, the reader is referred to the General Regulations of the IMO which can be found at:

http://www.imo-ocial.org/documents/RegulationsIMO.pdf. Prospective delegation members are urged to familarise themselves with the rules and provisions stipulated in the General Regulations.

Training Schedule

Contained in this section is an overview of the stages of the yearly competition held by the TTMO.

4.1

First stage

The rst stage of the competition is split over two rounds of examinations. The Round One contest is held in September and is open to all students from Forms Two to Six. There are three categories of competition: Junior, Intermediate, and Senior. The Round Two contest is held the following January, and there are two categories of competition: Level I and Level II. Students who have excelled in the Round One competition are allowed to sit the examinations of Round Two, with those from Forms Two to Five competing at Level I, and those from Form Six competing at Level II. Students who excel in the Round Two competition are invited to attend weekly training sessions with the view to being selected to represent Trinidad and Tobago at the IMO.

4.2

Weekly training

The students who are chosen based on their performance in the Round Two competition attend one three-hour training session per week during the Hilary and Trinity terms (JanuaryJune), where they are lectured in areas of problem solving and advanced High School mathematics. Several selection tests are administered, and using the results of these, a suitable team is chosen. It should be noted here that, while a maximum of six students per team is permitted by the rules of the IMO, a participating country may opt to send less than six students, should they deem only those students t for the competition. The TTMO is guided in this manner and may choose to form a team of less than six students; through the selection examinations each team 5

member must prove that he or she has attained the standard necessary to compete meaningfully at the IMO. Returning students who are still eligible to compete at the following years IMO are invited to continue attending weekly training sessions in Michaelmas term (SeptemberDecember).

4.3

Training camp

The team is required to attend a two-week training camp which takes place immediately before they are set to travel to host country of the IMO. Camp is an invaluable component of the training regime, and provides a period of intense preparation before competition.

List of Topics

This section, together with the next, form the core of the document. It contains a list of the topics that the TTMO attempts to cover in a yearlong cycle. A student attempting the IMO should have a working knowledge of the material outlined in this section. Two things should be noted. Firstly, this list is not exhaustive in the context of olympiad mathematics, nor does it attempt to be. It is simply a syllabus that has been constructed by inspecting past examinations and consulting various olympiad training manuals (see Section 7). As a corollary of this, one should expect that this section will be revised frequently to reect changes in examination trend. There is a caveat. Listed below are certain topics which, although they merit a permanent position in any similar syllabus, have fallen out of favour in recent olympiads. The topic of Algebraic Inequalities is a current example of this anomaly. Problems involving an inequality which could be proven using purely algebraic methods were very common in olympiads pre-2009, but their popularity has waned over recent years. (Lovers of inequalities should be not afraid, for such an acute dip in density is usually short-lived.) To suggest that the topic of Algebraic Inequalities be removed (or even temporarily suspended) from this list is to ignore their fundamental position in the theory. Rather, the author hopes that those charged with training the students of the TTMO

keep abreast with sharp shifts examination trends, and tailor their lectures accordingly. Secondly, a working knowledge of the topics listed in this section is by no means a guarantee of exceptional performance at the IMO. (Statistical evidence supports the truth of the converse however.) This syllabus is worthless if not accompanied by the appropriate training material, which must include a wide range of problems with varying levels of diculty.

5.1

Logical Preliminaries
Mathematical statements. Construction of statements. Conditional statements and implication. The converse and contrapositive of a conditional statement. The meaning of assume without loss of generality.

Statements

Proof techniques The concept of mathematical proof. Direct proof. Proof by contradiction. Proof by induction. Examples of fallacious proofs.

5.2

Algebra
Domain and range. Injectivity and surjectivity. The inverse of a function. Even and odd. Periodicity. Some special functions: modulus, oor, ceiling. Transforming functions. Solving functional identities.

Functions

Equations and Expressions Manipulation of algebraic expressions. Special factorisations: sums and 1 dierences of nth powers. Expressions of the form x n ` n . Polynomials: x multiplying and dividing polynomials, roots of polynomials, coecients and roots, transforming polynomials, Newtons Sums. Symmetric expressions. Systems of equations: linear systems and Gaussian elimination, convenient systems. Sequences and Series

Explicitly dened sequences. Recursively dened sequences. Arithmetic series. Geometric series. Innite series. Telescoping series. Solving recurrences. Computing sums and products. Harmonic sequences. Continued fractions. Inequalities Absolute value inequalities. Squares are positive. The Arithmetic Mean Geometric Mean Inequality. The Quadratic Mean. The Harmonic Mean. Weighted means. The CauchySchwarz Inequality. Maximisation and minimisation. The Rearrangement Inequality. Chebyshevs Inequality. Convexity and Jensens Inequality. Hlders Inequality. Bernoullis Inequality. Minkowskis Inequality. Schurs Inequality. Muirheads Inequality. Homogenisation. The Ravi Transformation. Geometric Inequalities.

5.3

Geometry
Angles and parallel lines. Arcs, segments, sectors and angles. Angles formed by lines intersecting a circle.

Angles

Triangles Medians, angle bisectors, perpendicular bisectors, altitudes. Congruent triangles. Similar triangles. The Angle Bisector Theorem. Right triangles and the Pythagorean Theorem. The trigonometric functions. The Sine Rule. The Cosine Rule. The area of a triangle. Stewarts Theorem. Quadrilaterals Trapezoids. Parallelograms. Rhombi. Rectangles and squares. Cyclic quadrilaterals: properties of cyclic quadrilaterals, nding cyclic quadrilaterals, Ptolemys Theorem. Polygons Types of polygons. Angles in a polygon. Regular polygons.

 Area Similar gures. Same base or same altitude. Complicated gures. Circles The Power of a Point. The Radical Axis. Collinearity and Concurrency Menelaus Theorem. Cevas Theorem. Desargues Theorem. Jacobis Theorem. Transformations Translation. Rotation. Reection. Distortion. Dilation and homothecy. Projection. Inversion. Analytic Geometry Labelling the plane. Lines, angles, and distances. Parameters. Vectors. Complex numbers and the Argand diagram.

5.4

Number Theory
Integer and rational exponents. Simplifying radical expressions. Rationalising denominators. Logarithms.

Exponents and Logarithms

Proportions Direct and inverse. Manipulating proportions. Conversion factors. Number bases Working with dierent bases. Uniqueness of representation. Divisibility Division with remainder. Divisibility properties. Divisibility tricks. Prime numbers and composite numbers. The innitude of the primes. Decomposition as a product of prime factors. The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. The greatest common divisor and least common multiple. The Euclidean Algorithm. Relatively prime and pairwise relatively prime sets of numbers. 9

 Congruences Modular arithmetic. Residue classes. Linear congruences. Linear Diophantine equations. The Chinese Remainder Theorem. Quadratic congruences and quadratic residues. The Legendre Symbol. Quadratic reciprocity. Fermats Little Theorem. Wilsons Theorem. Arithmetical functions Multiplicative functions. Eulers -function. The EulerFermat Theorem. The number of divisors. The sum of the divisors. Perfect numbers. Decient numbers and abundant numbers. Diophantine equations Pythagorean triples. The equation x 4 ` y 4 z 2 . The Pell Equation. The Four-Square Theorem. Prime numbers The role of the primes. Primes of the form 4k ` 1, and those of the form 4k ` 3. Dirichlets Theorem. The dierence between primes. Reclusive primes and twin primes. The sum of the reciprocals of the primes. The distribution of the primes. The Goldbach Conjecture1 .

5.5

Combinatorics
The Pigeonhole Principle. Multiplication. Restrictions on multiplication. The Inclusion-Exclusion Principle. Generating functions. Partitions. The Invariance Principle. Innite sets and one-to-one correspondences.

Counting principles

Permutations and combinations Permutations. Combinations. Rearrangements and derangements. The Binomial Theorem. Pascals Triangle. Combinatorial identities. Graphs
1

At the time of writing this is still a conjecture.

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Edges, vertices, and degrees. Planar graphs. Paths, trails, and cycles. Colourings.

Lecture Plan

It is the intention of the author to produce a detailed lecture plan for each training period (JanuaryJune, SeptemberDecember, and camp) to which trainers should adhere. However the syllabus is new, and he will most certainly complete this task far more ecaciously when equipped with the hindsight gained by attempting to lecture the syllabus detailed in Section 5 over the next year. In short, watch this space.

6.1

JanuaryJune

Nothing yet. Stay tuned.

6.2

SeptemberDecember

Nothing yet. Stay tuned.

6.3

Camp

At this point the students should be attempting dicult problems from each of the four subjects. Advanced and alternative topics may be taught according to taste.

6.4

A note about returning students

An obvious question arises: How does this lecture plan and syllabus make allowances for returning students who have already completed a full year of training with the TTMO? The author oers the following reasons as to why returning students should continue attending weekly training sessions. (i) To expand their existing knowledge with new material arising from major changes in the syllabus. 11

(ii) To ll any gaps in their existing knowledge. (iii) To revise dicult concepts that they may not have fully mastered on their rst pass. (iv) To consolidate their existing knowledge with minor changes in the syllabus. (v) To seek the expertise of trainers on advanced or optional topics that they may be reading for self-study. Should the trainer deem appropriate, during a weekly session, he or she may group senior students and conduct an advanced class in parallel with the usual lecture. At the committees discretion, seasoned IMO competitors may be allowed to be absent from weekly training sessions. However, all students wishing to represent Trinidad and Tobago at the IMO must sit the immediately preceding TTMO selection examinations.

References and Training Material

There exists a plethora of resources available both in print and on the world wide web, and the niche area of Olympiad Mathematics is an active one. One should therefore expect this section of the document to be ever-expanding, and the author welcomes additions from fellow trainers. http://www.imo-official.org http://www.artofproblemsolving.com Paul Erds and Janos Surnyi. Springer-Verlag, 2003 Topics in the Theory of Numbers.

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