JMO mentoring scheme

November 2012 paper

Generally earlier questions are easier and later questions more difficult.
Some questions are devised to help you learn aspects of mathematics which you may not meet in school.
Hints are upside down at the bottom of the page; fold the page back to view them when needed.
1

The composer Johann Sebastian Bach was paid a basic salary of 400 thalers a year in 1721 for his
musical services to Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Kthen. This brought in 33 thalers 8 groschen a month.
How many groschen were there in a thaler?

Pope Gregory XIII signed a decree in 1582 to bring in the new calendar which would re-align the date
of spring back to March 21st from which it had slipped 10 days since Roman times because of the
problems of leap years. It was only recognised by Roman Catholic countries. In Britain this did not
change until 1752; September 2nd was followed by September 14th because the difference had by
then slipped to 11 days. There was a further problem; the year number did not change until March
25th which was the beginning of the tax year. Thus the parliamentary record shows that King Charles I
was executed on January 30th 1648. What would this date have been on the new Gregorian calendar?
[Information from Wikipedia under Gregorian calendar.]

Find all the solutions of the equation (x + y)2 = x2 + y2 for real numbers x, y.

Five coins with radius 1 cm are arranged to touch as shown in the

diagram so that the diagram has two axes of symmetry. They just fit
onto the base of a rectangular box. What is the area of the base?

You are given an integer N such that when N is multiplied by 3 the

sum of its digits does not change. Prove that N is divisible by 9.

In the convex quadrilateral ABCD (so no internal angles are reflex),

the mid-points of AB, AC and BD are collinear (i.e., on the same
straight line). Prove that the mid-point of CD is also on this line.

The pupils in a class are asked to produce a mathematics problem. Jack invents a problem to try on his
classmates. He says he has 100 cards numbered from 1 to 100. He challenges them to pick up as many
of them as they can in such a way that no two cards appear whose numbers add up to 125.
At most, how many cards does Jack expect to see chosen?

Kathryn thinks she has come up with a harder problem. She pretends that she has a pack of cards
numbered from 1 to 10 000. She tells the class that on the first step they must imagine that she
removes all the cards showing a square number then renumbers the N cards still left in the pack in
sequence from 1 to N. She says that this step can be repeated over and over with N getting smaller
after each step. Her challenge is for the class to find out how many steps are needed until there is just
one card remaining. What answer does she expect?

8
3
4
5
6

What is (x + y)2 when the brackets are multiplied out? See note B in the notes for junior mentoring on the UKMT site.
Join the centres of the circles to find a familiar triangle.
What rules do you know about sum of digits and divisibility?
An extension of the ideas about similar triangles; note D.
If mid-points of two sides of a triangle are joined, then this join is parallel to the third side.
Try starting with a smaller number of cards which is a square number, 36 say.
You can prove the result using algebra which is no more difficult than the algebra in question 3.