Huntington University HSMC Competition Information and Sample Problems

Huntington University
High School Mathematics Competition
Competition Information and Sample Problems
Competition Rounds
There are three rounds to the competition, each with their own rules and procedures. Outside
resources such as notes, books, cell phones, and the like are not allowed on any part of the compe-
tition.

The first round of the competition is the Multiple Choice Round. It is an individual round,
and consists of twenty multiple-choice questions to be completed in 45 minutes. Each question
is worth 5 points for a correct answer, with 0 points awarded for a wrong answer or blank, for
a maximum of 100 points. Answers will be entered on a machine-graded answer sheet. No work
written on the test packet will be graded. We will collect only the answer sheets; the test packets
should be kept by the participants.
All team members and alternates can participate in the multiple choice round and will have
their answer sheets graded. However, only team members will be included in the final standings,
and only team members’ scores can count towards the team score.
Scientific or four-function calculators are permitted on the multiple choice round, but they will
not be necessary for any problems. Graphing calculators, including any calculators with graphing
capability, programmable calculators, and calculators with computer algebra systems are prohibited.

The second round of the competition is the Lightning Round. It is also an individual round,
and consists of 10 short-answer questions, delivered one at a time, with a time limit of two minutes
each. Each question is worth 10 points for a correct answer, with 0 points awarded for a wrong
answer or blank, for a maximum of 100 points. There is no partial credit.
Team members will enter their answers in a designated box on their question sheet. Alternates
can participate unofficially as the questions are projected on screens at the front, but their answers
will not be scored.
Calculators are not permitted on the lightning round.

The final round of the competition is the Team Round. The team round consists of 5 short-
answer questions in 15 minutes. Each question is worth 10 points. Questions on the team round
are more difficult and teams should collaborate as they work on the problems.
Substitutions of alternates for team members may be made on the team round, but only one
official team of four from each school will be graded and count toward the team score. Any students
not in this official team can form their own groups and participate unofficially.
Scientific calculators, but not graphing calculators, are permitted on the team round, similarly
to the multiple choice round.

Individual Standings will be based on the sum of the scores in the multiple-choice and light-
ning rounds. Team Standings will be based on the sum of the individual scores of the team members,
plus the team round score.
Tiebreak rules will be provided to coaches on the day of the exam.

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Huntington University HSMC Competition Information and Sample Problems

Competition Topics
The High School Mathematics Competition draws problems from Algebra (including vectors and
matrices), Geometry and Trigonometry, Calculus, Discrete Mathematics (including Combinatorics
and Elementary Number Theory), and Logic. Since many younger students will not have seen
calculus, only about 10% of the contest problems will require knowledge of calculus to solve. There
is no particular proportion of problems allocated to each topic, and some problems may bridge
multiple topics or not fit into any category at all.

Sample Competition Problems

The problems on the competition are contest-style problems, and many of them are different in style
and character than problems that might be found on an exam designed to assess content knowledge.
To give you an idea of the style and difficulty range of the competition problems, you can find in
the rest of this document a sampling of problems from past competitions.

Sample Problems: Multiple-Choice Round

1. A store sells bicycles, which have two wheels, and tricycles, which have three. There are 17
cycles in the store, and between them they have 45 wheels. How many bicycles are there?

(a) 2 (b) 6 (c) 7 (d) 8 (e) 14

2. An equilateral triangle and a regular hexagon have the same area. What is the side length of
the triangle divided by the side length of the hexagon?

√ √
(a) 1 (b) 2 (c) 2 (d) 6 (e) 6

3. Three circles of radii 3, 5, and 12 are each tangent to the other two, and none of the circles
is contained in any other. What is the area of the triangle whose vertices are at the centers
of the circles?

(a) 15 (b) 30 (c) 36 (d) 60 (e) None of these.

4. When the number 17203 is written out, what is the ones digit?

(a) 1 (b) 3 (c) 7 (d) 9 (e) None of these.

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Huntington University HSMC Competition Information and Sample Problems

 

 2 0 0 0 0 


 5 4 0 0 0 

5. Suppose that x ≥ 0 and that  1 1 x 0 0  = 24. What is the value of x?


 1 1 1 1 0 

 1 2 3 4 x+2 

(a) 0 (b) 1 (c) 2 (d) 3

(e) It cannot be determined from the information given.

6. In logic land, everyone is either a nerd or a goof. Nerds only make true statements, and goofs
only make false statements. You walk in on a conversation between Alice, Beth, and Cathy,
three inhabitants of logic land, and overhear the following.
Alice: “Beth and Cathy are both goofs!”
Beth: “That is true.”
How many of Alice, Beth, and Cathy are goofs?

(a) 0 (b) 1 (c) 2 (d) 3 (e) It is impossible to tell.

7. How many positive integers divide 2016?

(a) 8 (b) 10 (c) 12 (d) 20 (e) 36

8. Circles A, B, and C are concentric, with A being the smallest and C being the largest. A
tangent line to circle A intersects circle B at points P and Q and intersects circle C at points
R and S. We know that RS = 2 · P Q, circle A has radius 1, and circle C has radius 3. What
is the area of circle B?

(a) 2π (b) 3π (c) 4π (d) 6π (e) None of these

9. April and May play a game with piles of stones. The rules of the game are as follows: each
player, on her turn, may either take one stone from any one pile, or may split any one pile
with an even number of stones into two piles of the same size. The winner is the player to
take the last stone. They begin with a single pile of n stones, for some positive integer n, and
April plays first. For how many values of n, 1 ≤ n ≤ 100, will May be the winner if both
players play with their best possible strategy?

(a) 0 (b) 33 (c) 34 (d) 49 (e) 50

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Huntington University HSMC Competition Information and Sample Problems

Sample Problems: Lightning Round

1. Seven toads are lined up in a row. The leftmost toad has 2 warts, and each other toad has
one less than twice the number of warts on its neighbor to the left. How many warts does the
rightmost toad have?

2. A flowerbed is three inches high and has a length that is four times its width. When filled
with soil, it contains 720 pounds of soil. If the density of soil is 80 pounds per cubic foot,
what are the length L and width W of the garden in feet?

3. Find the least common multiple of the first fifteen positive integers.

4. For how many nonzero real numbers x does x3 = xx ?

5. In the picture below, each of the three mutually tangent circles

√ has radius 1. What is the
a b + cπ
area of the shaded region? Express your answer in the form , where a, b, c, and d
d
are integers.

Sample Problems: Team Round

a c
1. Let p = and q = be fractions in lowest terms. For positive integers m and n, we define
b d
ma + nc
the (m, n)-interpolation of p and q to be . A pair (m, n) is averaging for p and q if
mc + nd
p+q
the (m, n)-interpolation of p and q is equal to . Find the pair (m, n) that is averaging
2
7 294
for and such that m + n is as small as possible.
100 455

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Huntington University HSMC Competition Information and Sample Problems

2. A bag contains n blue balls and n red balls. When three balls are drawn at random from the
1
bag without replacement, the probability that all three balls are blue is . What is n?
9

3. When 20! = 1 · 2 · · · 20 is written in base 10, it ends in exactly 4 zeros. When written in base
11, it ends in exactly 1 zero. When written in base 12, it ends with exactly n zeros. Find n.

4. Let f (x) = 1 − 2x + x2 and g(x) = 1 + 2x + x2 . Find the number β such that

Z β
[f (x)g 0 (x) + f 0 (x)g(x)] dx = 2303.
0