1. James is playing a game involving a standard French deck of 52 playing cards.

In
this game, he shuffles the deck thoroughly using a shuffle machine. He proceeds to
draw cards one by one, without replacement. He continues drawing cards until he
encounters the first red card – at which point he halts the card drawing process.
What is the probability that James stops drawing cards before reaching the tenth
card?

2. Ryan has a chain of 64 links. He folds the chain in half repeatedly until it forms a
single bundle. Each time he folds the chain, the number of links double. How many
times will Ryan need to fold the chain to form a single bundle, and how many links
will the bundle contain?

3. A math rock band founded by Craigslist users is founded, called “The Polynomial
Pony Pissjars”. Known for their complex rhythms and experimental style, their hit
track involves a rather unusual sequence of notes with irregular time intervals. The
sequence consists of 12 notes played in a loop. Each note represents a 16 th note
duration in standard notation. However, the guitarist plays the notes in a pattern
whose time intervals between consecutive notes follow the Fibonacci sequence. If
the guitarist starts playing the sequence at second 0 and the first note is played,
how many seconds will it take for the guitarist to complete one full loop of the
sequence?

4. In last year’s boxing contest, each of the 23 boxers from the blue team fought
exactly one of the 23 boxers from the green team. This is done in accordance with
the contest regulation that opponents may only fight if the absolute difference of
their weights is less than one kilogram. Assuming that this year the members of
both teams remain the same as last year and that their weights are unchanged,
show that the contest regulation is satisfied if the lightest member of the blue team
fights the lightest member of the green team, the next lightest member of the blue
team fights the next lightest member of the green team, and so on.

5. Let Ψ > 0. Around every point in the XY-plane with integral coordinates, draw a
circle around the radius of Ψ. Prove that every straight line through the origin must
intersect an infinity of these circles.
6. If four distinct points lie in the plane such that any three of them can be covered
by a disk of unit radius, prove that all four points may be covered by a disk of unit
radius.

7. Given an eight-deck shoe with a standard shuffled French 52-card deck, you’ve
received the following cards – now out-of-play:

8♥ 2♦ K♦ 8♠ 9♠ 3♥ 9♣ 10♣ K♥ A♦ 4♦ A♦ A♦ Q♥ 6♥ A♣ 7♣ 9♠ A♠ 10 ♥

There are no other players in the game, other than you. What is the best possible
move in this blackjack game, given the following hand:

Dealer: 10♠ XX
You: 3♦ 2♦ A♥

8. Let M be a 3×3 matrix with entries chosen at random from the finite field Z 2 –
{0,1}. What is the probability that M is invertible?

9. Prove that the sum of two consecutive odd primes is the product of at least three
prime factors.

10. Determine a monic polynomial f(x) with integral coefficients such that
f(x) = 0 (mod p) is solvable for every prime p but f(x) is not solvable with x an
integer.

11. Do there exist non-constant polynomials p(z) in the complex variable z such
that |p(z)| < R n on |z| = R, where R > 0 and p(z) is monic and of degree n?

12. Consider a circle with a radius centered at the origin in the Cartesian coordinate
plane. The equation of this circle is:

x 2 + y 2=r 2
Let P be a point on the circle with integer coordinates (xP, yP), such that both xP
and yP are prime numbers. Determine the number of such distinct points P that
satisfy this condition within the circle for the given prime radius r.

13. We are provided the following sequence:

58 43 60 37 52 41 62 25 49 46 57 42 61 36 53 40 44 59 48 51 38 55 34 63 47 50
45 56 33 64 39 54

If ordered in four rows of eight, determine all correct possibilities of the next 14
integers.

14. You are given a paper bag of coins. Red coins earn you $30, yellow coins earn
you $15, green coins, reduce your earnings total by half, and beige coins reduce
your total earnings by $5. There is a 1/3 chance of drawing a beige or red coin, with
a 1/6 chance of drawing a yellow or green coin. After how many draws do you
expect $500?

15. The function ϕ(x) generates a unique structure that plots natural numbers in a
modular spiral formation. In the center is 1. It then follows a pattern that plots
outwards; rotating counter-clockwise x radians around the center while plotting
itself; with the pattern infinitely repeating. What angle is 100 at ϕ(π), ϕ(π/2),
ϕ(2π/3), and ϕ(π/3)?

16. Let n be a natural number and M a subset of {1, …, 2n} of size n + 1. Prove
that there exist a, b ∈ M with a ≠ b such that a divides b.

17. You are an FBI agent involved with a case of an extremely creative serial killer.
The serial killer leaves few clues of how to break his codes, and he seems to leave
encoded directions to his next target. One day, a fellow agent gives you a pile of
papers of clues on the serial killer. You sift through the papers, and see an
interesting sheet of paper. You are given two different keys, per an unknown
encryption scheme.

u = 02f54ba86dc1ccb5bed0224d
 w = 51897b64e85c3f714bba707

You are also given a value, though you aren’t aware of its use:

k1

You are finally given an equation:

B**2=N**3+0(N)+7

You are lastly given some information from a half-burnt piece of paper. Surprisingly,
the text is written in a familiar code:

BSIN1YOIDPDTEITLYLNSGLOEEKREROH1GUOOTOOAND5WUNELKH2TENTLKIRO
RRS1EDYNOBAERWHNUR2MXHLCCEEE5SROHTONAOREFALEPMDEVOTAETNEXA
YYDLOTYY6AAWEHFGPKENONANTESIAFSIY·DMAXXWIUMESRBFLAYIUAHFFCRD
TCITKNLSNTW·

Your fellow agent comes gets back to you, and requests only the modulo value to
produce the full initial keys.

18. Find all positive integers k such that k3 + 2k2 + k is a perfect square.

19. Consider a non-negative integer sequence a1, a2, a3, … such that an+1 is the
smallest non-negative integer not present in the set {a1, a2, …, an} which doesn’t
create an arithmetic progression of length 4 with any three distinct elements of the
sequence. Prove or disprove the existence of such a sequence.

20. Consider a particle confined to a one-dimensional potential well described by

the infinite square well potential:
V ( x)=0 for 0⩽x⩽a∧V ( x)=∞ otherwise. Suppose the particle’s wave
function ψ(x) satisfies the boundary conditions ψ (0)=ψ (a)=0 . You must do the
following:
➢ Determine the general form of ψ(x) within the well.
➢ Find the probability density |ψ(x)|2 within the well.
➢ Calculate the expectation value of the position ⟨ x ⟩ and momentum ⟨ p ⟩ for the
particle.