{"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "1", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "David, Delong, and Justin each showed up to a problem writing session at a random time during the session. If David arrived before Delong, what is the probability that he also arrived before Justin?", "solution": "$\\sqrt[2]{3}$ Let $t_{1}$ be the time that David arrives, let $t_{2}$ be the time that Delong arrives, and let $t_{3}$ be the time that Justin arrives. We can assume that all times are pairwise distinct because the probability of any two being equal is zero. Because the times were originally random and independent before we were given any information, then all orders $t_{1}2, a_{n}=$ $3 a_{n-1}-2 a_{n-2}$. How many such sequences $\\left\\{a_{n}\\right\\}$ are there such that $a_{2010} \\leq 2^{2012}$ ?", "solution": "$36 \\cdot 2^{2009}+36$ Consider the characteristic polynomial for the recurrence $a_{n+2}-3 a_{n+1}+$ $2 a_{n}=0$, which is $x^{2}-3 x+2$. The roots are at 2 and 1 , so we know that numbers $a_{i}$ must be of the form $a_{i}=a 2^{i-1}+b$ for integers $a$ and $b$. Therefore $a_{2010}$ must equal to $a 2^{2009}+b$, where $a$ and $b$ are both integers. If the expression is always positive, it is sufficient to say $a_{1}$ is positive and $a$ is nonnegative, or $a+b>0$, and $a \\geq 0$.\nFor a given value of $a, 1-a \\leq b \\leq 2^{2012}-a 2^{2009}$, so there are $2^{2012}-a 2^{2009}+a$ possible values of $b$ for each $a$ (where the quantity is positive). $a$ can take any value between 0 and $2^{3}$, we sum over all such a in this range, to attain $9 \\cdot 2^{2012}-(1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8) 2^{2009}+(1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8)$, or $36\\left(2^{2009}\\right)+36$, which is our answer.", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n23. [12]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "24", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "Let $P(x)$ be a polynomial of degree at most 3 such that $P(x)=\\frac{1}{1+x+x^{2}}$ for $x=1,2,3,4$. What is $P(5)$ ?", "solution": "$\\frac{-3}{91}$ The forward difference of a polynomial $P$ is $\\Delta P(x)=P(x+1)-P(x)$, which is a new polynomial with degree reduced by one. Therefore, if we apply this operation three times we'll get a constant function, and we can work back up to get a value of $P(5)$. Practically, we create the following table of differences:\n\n$$\n\\begin{array}{ccccccc}\n\\frac{1}{3} & & \\frac{1}{7} & & \\frac{1}{13} & & \\frac{1}{21} \\\\\n& \\frac{-4}{21} & & \\frac{-6}{91} & & \\frac{-8}{273} & \\\\\n& \\frac{34}{273} & & \\frac{10}{273} & & \\\\\n& & \\frac{-24}{273} & & &\n\\end{array}\n$$\n\nThen extend it to be the following table:\n![](https://cdn.mathpix.com/cropped/2025_01_24_40a54ee162d76b2e0116g-07.jpg?height=202&width=749&top_left_y=750&top_left_x=729)\n\nSo our answer is $\\frac{-9}{273}=\\frac{-3}{91}$", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n24. [12]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "25", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "Triangle $A B C$ is given with $A B=13, B C=14, C A=15$. Let $E$ and $F$ be the feet of the altitudes from $B$ and $C$, respectively. Let $G$ be the foot of the altitude from $A$ in triangle $A F E$. Find $A G$.", "solution": "| $\\frac{396}{65}$ |\n| :---: | By Heron's formula we have $[A B C]=\\sqrt{21(8)(7)(6)}=84$. Let $D$ be the foot of the altitude from $A$ to $B C$; then $A D=2 \\cdot \\frac{84}{14}=12$. Notice that because $\\angle B F C=\\angle B E C, B F E C$ is cyclic, so $\\angle A F E=90-\\angle E F C=90-\\angle E B C=\\angle C$. Therefore, we have $\\triangle A E F \\sim \\triangle A B C$, so $\\frac{A G}{A D}=\\frac{A E}{A B} ; \\frac{1}{2}(B E)(A C)=84 \\Longrightarrow B E=\\frac{56}{5} \\Longrightarrow A E=\\sqrt{13^{2}-\\left(\\frac{56}{5}\\right)^{2}}=\\sqrt{\\frac{65^{2}-56^{2}}{5^{2}}}=\\frac{33}{5}$. Then $A G=A D \\cdot \\frac{A E}{A B}=12 \\cdot \\frac{33 / 5}{13}=\\frac{396}{65}$.", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n25. [14]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "26", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "$w, x, y, z$ are real numbers such that\n\n$$\n\\begin{aligned}\nw+x+y+z & =5 \\\\\n2 w+4 x+8 y+16 z & =7 \\\\\n3 w+9 x+27 y+81 z & =11 \\\\\n4 w+16 x+64 y+256 z & =1\n\\end{aligned}\n$$\n\nWhat is the value of $5 w+25 x+125 y+625 z ?$", "solution": "-60 We note this system of equations is equivalent to evaluating the polynomial (in $a$ ) $P(a)=w a+x a^{2}+y a^{3}+z a^{4}$ at $1,2,3$, and 4 . We know that $P(0)=0, P(1)=5, P(2)=7, P(3)=11$, $P(4)=1$. The finite difference of a polynomial $f$ is $f(n+1)-f(n)$, which is a polynomial with degree one less than the degree of $f$. The second, third, etc finite differences come from applying this operation repeatedly. The fourth finite difference of this polynomial is constant because this is a fourth degree polynomial. Repeatedly applying finite differences, we get\n![](https://cdn.mathpix.com/cropped/2025_01_24_40a54ee162d76b2e0116g-07.jpg?height=215&width=655&top_left_y=2104&top_left_x=773)\nand we see that the fourth finite difference is -21 . We can extend this table, knowing that the fourth finite difference is always -21 , and we find that that $P(5)=-60$. The complete table is\n\n| 0 | | 5 | | 7 | | 11 | | 1 | | -60 |\n| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |\n| | 5 | 2 | | 4 | | -10 | | -61 | | |\n| | | -3 | | 2 | | -14 | | -51 | | |\n| | | 5 | | -16 | | -37 | | | | |\n| | | | | -21 | | -21 | | | | |", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n26. [14]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "27", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "Let $f(x)=-x^{2}+10 x-20$. Find the sum of all $2^{2010}$ solutions to $\\underbrace{f(f(\\ldots(x) \\ldots))}_{2010 f \\mathrm{~s}}=2$.", "solution": "$5 \\cdot 2^{2010}$ Define $g(x)=f(f(\\ldots(x) \\ldots))$. We calculate:\n$f(10-x)=-(10-x)^{2}+10(10-x)-20=-100+20 x-x^{2}+100-10 x-20=-x^{2}+10 x-20=f(x)$.\nThis implies that $g(10-x)=g(x)$. So if $g(x)=2$, then $g(10-x)=2$. Moreover, we can calculate $f(5)=-25+50-20=5$, so $g(5)=5 \\neq 2$. Thus the possible solutions to $g(x)=2$ can be grouped into pairs, $\\left(x_{1}, 10-x_{1}\\right),\\left(x_{2}, 10-x_{2}\\right), \\ldots$ The sum of the members of each pair is 10 , and there are $2^{2009}$ pairs, so the sum is\n\n$$\n10 \\cdot 2^{2009}=5 \\cdot 2^{2010}\n$$", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n27. [14]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "28", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "In the game of set, each card has four attributes, each of which takes on one of three values. A set deck consists of one card for each of the 81 possible four-tuples of attributes. Given a collection of 3 cards, call an attribute good for that collection if the three cards either all take on the same value of that attribute or take on all three different values of that attribute. Call a collection of 3 cards two-good if exactly two attributes are good for that collection. How many two-good collections of 3 cards are there? The order in which the cards appear does not matter.", "solution": "25272 In counting the number of sets of 3 cards, we first want to choose which of our two attributes will be good and which of our two attributes will not be good. There are $\\binom{4}{2}=6$ such choices.\nNow consider the two attributes which are not good, attribute X and attribute Y. Since these are not good, some value should appear exactly twice. Suppose the value $a$ appears twice and $b$ appears once for attribute $X$ and that the value $c$ appears twice and $d$ appears once for attribute $Y$. There are three choices for $a$ and then two choices for $b$; similarly, there are three choices for $c$ and then two choices for $d$. This gives $3 \\cdot 2 \\cdot 3 \\cdot 2=36$ choices of $a, b, c$, and $d$.\nThere are two cases to consider. The first is that there are two cards which both have $a$ and $c$, while the other card has both $b$ and $d$. The second case is that only one card has both $a$ and $c$, while one card has $a$ and $d$ and the other has $b$ and $c$.\n\nCase 1:\n\n| Card $1 \\quad$ Card 2 | Card 3 | |\n| :---: | :---: | :---: |\n| - Good attribute 1 - | | |\n| - Good attribute $2-$ | | |\n| a | a | b |\n| c | c | d |\n\nThe three cards need to be distinct. Card 3 is necessarily distinct from Card 1 and Card 2, but we need to ensure that Card 1 and Card 2 are distinct from each other. There are 9 choices for the two good attributes of Card 1, and then 8 choices for the two good attributes of Card 2. But we also want to divide by 2 since we do not care about the order of Card 1 and Card 2. So there are $\\frac{9 \\cdot 8}{2}=36$ choices for the good attributes on Card 1 and Card 2. Then, the values of the good attributes of Card 1 and Card 2 uniquely determine the values of the good attributes of Card 3.\nCase 2:\nCard 1 Card 2 Card 3\n\n- Good attribute 1 -\n- Good attribute 2 -\n\n| $a$ | $a$ | $b$ |\n| :--- | :--- | :--- |\n| $c$ | $d$ | $c$ |\n\nCard 1, Card 2, and Card 3 will all be distinct no matter what the values of the good attributes are, because the values of attributes $X$ and $Y$ are unique to each card. So there are 9 possibilities for the the values of the good attributes on card 1, and then there are 9 more possibilities for the values of the good attribute on Card 2. We do not have to divide by 2 this time, since Card 1 and Card 2 have distinct values in $X$ and $Y$. So there are $9^{2}=81$ possibilities here.\nSo our final answer is $6 \\cdot 6^{2} \\cdot(36+81)=25272$.", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n28. [17]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "29", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "In the game of Galactic Dominion, players compete to amass cards, each of which is worth a certain number of points. Say you are playing a version of this game with only two kinds of cards, planet cards and hegemon cards. Each planet card is worth 2010 points, and each hegemon card is worth four points per planet card held. You start with no planet cards and no hegemon cards, and, on each turn, starting at turn one, you take either a planet card or a hegemon card, whichever is worth more points given the hand you currently hold. Define a sequence $\\left\\{a_{n}\\right\\}$ for all positive integers $n$ by setting $a_{n}$ to be 0 if on turn $n$ you take a planet card and 1 if you take a hegemon card. What is the smallest value of $N$ such that the sequence $a_{N}, a_{N+1}, \\ldots$ is necessarily periodic (meaning that there is a positive integer $k$ such that $a_{n+k}=a_{n}$ for all $\\left.n \\geq N\\right)$ ?", "solution": "503 If you have $P$ planets and $H$ hegemons, buying a planet gives you $2010+4 H$ points while buying a hegemon gives you $4 P$ points. Thus you buy a hegemon whenever $P-H \\geq 502.5$, and you buy a planet whenever $P-H \\leq 502.5$. Therefore $a_{i}=1$ for $1 \\leq i \\leq 503$. Starting at $i=504$ (at which point you have bought 503 planets) you must alternate buying planets and hegemons. The sequence $\\left\\{a_{i}\\right\\}_{i \\geq 503}$ is periodic with period 2 .", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n29. [17]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "30", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "In the game of projective set, each card contains some nonempty subset of six distinguishable dots. A projective set deck consists of one card for each of the 63 possible nonempty subsets of dots. How many collections of five cards have an even number of each dot? The order in which the cards appear does not matter.", "solution": "109368 We'll first count sets of cards where the order does matter. Suppose we choose the first four cards. Then there is exactly one card that can make each dot appear twice. However, this card could be empty or it could be one of the cards we've already chosen, so we have to subtract for these two cases. First, there are $63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 61 \\cdot 60$ ways to choose the first four cards. Let's now count how many ways there are that the fifth card could be empty.\nThe fifth card is empty if and only if the first four cards already have an even number of each dot. Suppose we choose the first two cards. There is a possible fourth card if the third card is not either of the first two or the card that completes a set. If that is the case, then the fourth card is unique. This comes to $63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 60$ cases.\nNow consider how many ways there are for the fifth card to be a duplicate. This is just the number of ways for three cards to have an even number of each dot, then have two copies of the same card in the other two slots, one of which needs to be the fifth slot. The number of ways for three cards to have an even number of each dot is just the number of ways to choose two cards. Therefore, we'll choose two cards ( $63 \\cdot 62$ ways), choose the slot in the first four positions for the duplicate card ( 4 ways), and the duplicate card, which can't be any of the nonduplicated cards, so there are 60 choices. Therefore, there are $63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 4 \\cdot 60$ ways for the fifth card to be the same as one of the first four.\nThis means that the number of five card sets where the order does matter is $63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 61 \\cdot 60-63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 60-$ $63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 4 \\cdot 60$, so our final answer is $\\frac{63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 61 \\cdot 60-63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 60-63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot 4 \\cdot 60}{120}=\\frac{63 \\cdot 62 \\cdot(61-1-4)}{2}=63 \\cdot 31 \\cdot 56=109368$.", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n30. [17]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "31", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "What is the perimeter of the triangle formed by the points of tangency of the incircle of a 5-7-8 triangle with its sides?", "solution": "$\\frac{9 \\sqrt{21}}{7}+3$ Let $\\triangle A B C$ be a triangle with sides $a=7, b=5$, and $c=8$. Let the incircle of $\\triangle A B C$ be tangent to sides $B C, C A$, and $A B$ at points $D, E$, and $F$. By the law of cosines (using the form $\\left.\\cos (A)=\\frac{b^{2}+c^{2}-a^{2}}{2 b c}\\right)$, we have\n\n$$\n\\begin{aligned}\n& \\cos (A)=\\frac{8^{2}+5^{2}-7^{2}}{2(5)(8)}=\\frac{1}{2} \\\\\n& \\cos (B)=\\frac{8^{2}+7^{2}-5^{2}}{2(7)(8)}=\\frac{11}{14} \\\\\n& \\cos (C)=\\frac{5^{2}+7^{2}-8^{2}}{2(7)(5)}=\\frac{1}{7}\n\\end{aligned}\n$$\n\nNow we observe that $A E F, B D F$, and $C D E$ are all isosceles. Let us call the lengths of the legs of these triangles $s, t$, and $u$, respectively. Then we know that $s+t=8, t+u=7$, and $u+s=5$, so $s=3, t=5$, and $u=2$.\nOur final observation is that an isosceles angle with legs of length $l$ and whose non-equal angle is $\\theta$ has a base of length $l \\sqrt{2(1-\\cos (\\theta))}$. This can be proven using the law of cosines or the Pythagorean theorem.\n\nUsing this, we can calculate that\n\n$$\n\\begin{aligned}\nD E & =2 \\sqrt{2(1-\\cos (C))} \\\\\n& =2 \\sqrt{\\frac{12}{7}} \\\\\nE F & =3 \\sqrt{2(1-\\cos (A))} \\\\\n& =3 \\\\\nF D & =5 \\sqrt{2(1-\\cos (B))} \\\\\n& =5 \\sqrt{\\frac{3}{7}}\n\\end{aligned}\n$$\n\nand then\n\n$$\n\\begin{aligned}\nD E+E F+F D & =2 \\sqrt{\\frac{12}{7}}+3+5 \\sqrt{\\frac{3}{7}} \\\\\n& =3+9 \\sqrt{\\frac{3}{7}} \\\\\n& =3+9 \\frac{\\sqrt{21}}{7}\n\\end{aligned}\n$$", "metadata": {"resource_path": "HarvardMIT/segmented/en-141-2010-nov-guts-solutions.jsonl", "problem_match": "\n31. [20]", "solution_match": "\nAnswer: "}} {"year": "2010", "tier": "T4", "problem_label": "32", "problem_type": null, "exam": "HMMT", "problem": "Let $T$ be the set of numbers of the form $2^{a} 3^{b}$ where $a$ and $b$ are integers satisfying $0 \\leq a, b \\leq 5$. How many subsets $S$ of $T$ have the property that if $n$ is in $S$ then all positive integer divisors of $n$ are in $S$ ?", "solution": "924 Consider the correspondence $(a, b) \\leftrightarrow 2^{a} 3^{b}$ for non-negative integers $a$ and $b$. So we can view $T$ as the square of lattice points $(a, b)$ where $0 \\leq a, b \\leq 5$, and subsets of $T$ as subsets of this square.\n\nNotice then that the integer corresponding to $\\left(a_{1}, b_{1}\\right)$ is a divisor of the integer corresponding to $\\left(a_{2}, b_{2}\\right)$ if and only if $0 \\leq a_{1} \\leq a_{1}$ and $0 \\leq b_{1} \\leq b_{2}$. This means that subsets $S \\subset T$ with the desired property,\ncorrespond to subsets of the square where if a point is in the set, then so are all points to the left and south of it.\nConsider any such subset $S$. For each $0 \\leq x \\leq 5$, let $S_{x}$ be the maximum $y$ value of any point $(x, y) \\in S$, or -1 if there is no such point. We claim the values $S_{x}$ uniquely characterize $S$. This is because each $S_{x}$ characterizes the points of the form $(x, y)$ in $S$. In particular, $(x, z)$ will be in $S$ if and only if $z \\leq S_{x}$. If $(x, z) \\in S$ with $z>S_{x}$, then $S_{x}$ is not the maximum value, and if $(x, z) \\notin S$ with $z \\leq S_{x}$, then $S$ fails to satisfy the desired property.\nWe now claim that $S_{x} \\geq S_{y}$ for $x