Lecture notes on American Mathematics

Competitions (AMC)

TS. Nguyen Thanh Hoang

Chapter 1

Sets

A set is a collection of objects. The objects can be anything: numbers,

letters, all copies of this note, or absolutely nothing. The objects in a set
are called the elements of the set.
How does one go about specifying a set? If the set has only a few
elements, one can simply list the objects in the set, writing “A is the set
consisting of the elements 2, 4, 6, 8”. In symbols, this statement becomes

A = {2, 4, 6, 8}

where braces are used to enclose the list of elements.

Some sets are too long to specify in this way. For instance, the set of all
even positive integers. In such a case, we can write the set like

{x ∈ Z+ | x is even}

Here the braces stand for the words “the set of ”, and the vertical bar stands
for the words “such that”.
Each of the major types of numbers has a special letter-like symbol which
always refers to that set.
R : the set of real numbers.
Z : the set of integer numbers
Q : the set of rational numbers.
Remark 1.0.1. The order in which we list the elements does not matter.
What does matter is what is in the set. For example, the set {2, 1, 3, 5} is
the same set as {1, 3, 2, 5}.
Definition 1.0.2. We say a set A is a subset of a set B if every element x
that belongs to A also belongs to B. This is denoted A ⊂ B.

1
CHAPTER 1. SETS 2

Example 1.0.3. The sets {1, 2} and {3, 4, 5} are subsets of the set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}.
We say that two sets A and B are equal if and only if each is a subset of the
other.

Empty set ∅ is the (unique) set containing no elements. It is therefore a

subset of every set.

Example 1.0.4. How many subsets can be formed from a set of 3 elements?

We denote the subset of 3 elements by A = {a, b, c}. We can list the

subsets of A:
{a}, {b}, {c}, {a, b}, {a, c}, {b, c}, {a, b, c}
and EMPTY set (don’t forget it). Thus, there are eight subsets can be
formed from a set of 3 elements.

Question 1.0.5. How many subsets can be formed from a set of 2021 ele-
ments? In general, how many subsets can be formed from a set of n elements

The union of two or more sets is the set of all elements that belong to
one or more of the sets. The union of A and B is denoted by A ∪ B.

Example 1.0.6. {1, 2} ∪ {2, 4, 5, 7} = {1, 2, 4, 5, 7}

The intersection of two or more sets is the set of all elements that belong
to all of the sets. The intersection of A and B is denoted A ∩ B.

Example 1.0.7. {1, 2, 5} ∩ {2, 4, 6} = {2}

Complement of a set A are the elements not in A.

1.1 Venn diagrams

To visualize the interaction of sets, John Venn in 1880 thought to use over-
lapping circles, building on a similar idea used by Leonhard Euler in the
18th century. These illustrations now called Venn Diagrams. A Venn dia-
gram typically uses intersecting and non-intersecting circles (although other
closed figures like squares may be used) to denote the relationship between
sets.
The union of two sets A and B.
CHAPTER 1. SETS 3

The intersection of two sets A and B

One common type of problem which we can solve easily using Venn
diagrams is below.
Example 1.1.1. At one hospital, there are 100 patients, all of whom have
at least one of the following ailments: a cold, the flu, or an earache. 38 have
a cold, 40 have the flu, and some number have earaches. If 17 have both
colds and the flu, 10 have colds and earaches, 23 have the flu and earaches,
and 7 have all three, how many have an earache?
At first, it looks a complicated problem, but it is simple when you con-
sider a Venn diagram.
We work from inside out:
1. We place a 7 in the central space since 7 have all three ailments.

2. As 23 have both flu and an earache, with 7 already counted for having
all three ⇒ there are 16 left to go in the space for flu and earache but
not cold.
CHAPTER 1. SETS 4

3. Filling in the remaining two ailments space similarly.

4. So far, we have 33 flu victims by counting all the people in the flu circle.
Hence there are 40 -33 = 7 people who have the flu only. Similarly,
there are 18 people who have the cold only, and there are 39 people
who have the earache only.

1.2 Exercise
Problem 1.2.1. Sets A and B, shown in the Venn diagram, have the same
number of elements. Their union has 2007 elements and their intersection
has 1001 elements. Find the number of elements in A.

(A) 503

(B) 1006

(C) 1504

(D) 1507
CHAPTER 1. SETS 5

Problem 1.2.2. Set A contains the positive even integers less than 14.
Set B contains the positive multiples of three less than 20. What is the
intersection of the two sets?

Problem 1.2.3. Let A = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8} and B = {2, 4, 6, 8, 10}. What

is A ∪ B? What is A ∩ B?

Problem 1.2.4. Set A contains 15 elements, set B contains 12 elements

and the intersection of A and B contains 8 elements. How many elements
belong to the union A ∪ B?

(A) 35

(B) 27

(C) 19

(D) 20

Problem 1.2.5. How many subsets can be formed from a set of 3 elements?

Problem 1.2.6. How many subsets can be formed from a set of 4 elements?

Problem 1.2.7. How many subsets can be formed from a set of 5 elements?

Problem 1.2.8. How many 3 element subsets can be formed from a set of
5 elements?

(A) 11

(B) 10

(C) 3

(D) 8

Problem 1.2.9. How many 2 element subsets can be formed from a set of
5 elements?

Problem 1.2.10. In a high school, there are 75 students. If 30 students

are studying Mathematics, 20 are studying Physics, 15 are studying English,
11 are studying Mathematics and Physics, 9 are studying Mathematics and
English, 34 are not studying any subject above, and 4 are studying all three
subjects. Then how many students are studying Physics and English?

(A) 7
CHAPTER 1. SETS 6

(B) 8

(C) 4

(D) 9
Problem 1.2.11. Forty students play soccer and basketball after school.
Twenty-four students play soccer and twenty-nine play basketball. How
many students play both soccer and basketball?

(A) 11

(B) 16

(C) 5

(D) 13

Problem 1.2.12. In a class of senior high-school students, 15 have pet cats,

12 have pet dogs, 5 have both cats and dogs, and 8 have neither cats nor
dogs. How many total students are in the class?

(A) 30

(B) 27

(C) 22

(D) 40

Problem 1.2.13. 100 students are in the 10th grade class. 30 are swimmers,
40 are runners, and 20 are swimmers and runners. What is the probability
that a student is a swimmer OR a runner?
(A) 1/3

(B) 1/2

(C) 1/5

(D) 2/3
Problem 1.2.14. We have two sports clubs offered to a class of 100 stu-
dents. 70 students joined the basketball club, 40 students joined the swim-
ming club, and 10 students joined neither. How many students joined both
the swimming club and the basketball club?
CHAPTER 1. SETS 7

(A) 5

(B) 10

(C) 15

(D) 20

Problem 1.2.15. High school freshmen can take Biology, Chemistry, or

both. If 50 freshmen take Biology, 60 freshmen take Chemistry, and there are
90 freshmen in total. How many freshmen take both Biology and Chemistry?

(A) 5

(B) 10

(C) 15

(D) 20

Problem 1.2.16. Fifty 6th graders were asked what their favorite school
subjects were. Three students like math, science and English. Five students
liked math and science. Seven students liked math and English. Eight
people liked science and English. Twenty students liked science. Twenty-
eight students liked English. Fourteen students liked math. How many
students didn’t like any of these classes?

(A) 3

(B) 5

(C) 7

(D) 10

Problem 1.2.17. Students at a local high school are given the option to
take one gym class, one music class or one of each. Out of 100 students,
60 say that they are currently taking a gym class and 70 say that they are
taking a music class. How many students are taking both?

(A) 20

(B) 30

(C) 40
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(D) 50

Problem 1.2.18. Ten friends go out to dinner together: 7 order an appe-

tizer, 5 order a soup, and 4 order a salad. If everyone orders something, but
no one orders exactly two things, how many people order all three things?

(A) 2

(B) 3

(C) 4

(D) 5

Problem 1.2.19. In a survey of 60 people, 50 liked sausage on their pizzas,

40 liked mushrooms, 30 liked olives, and 20 liked all three. What is the
largest number of people that could have liked only sausage?