The following notations are used throughout the question paper.

• R denotes the set of real numbers.

• Z denotes the set of integers.

• N denotes the set of natural numbers.

• C denotes the set of complex numbers.

• For a real number x, �x� denotes the greatest integer ≤ x.

• For a real number x, �x� denotes the least integer ≥ x.

1. The roots of the equation x4 + x3 + x2 + x + 1 = 0 are

(A) the vertices of a square.

(B) (some of) the vertices of a regular pentagon.
(C) (some of) the vertices of a regular hexagon.
(D) (some of) the vertices of a regular heptagon.

�1� �2�
2 , 1 } be a basis of R and T : R → R be
2 2 2
2. Let C = {
� � � x+y �
defined by T xy = x−2y . If T (C) represents the matrix of
T with respect to the basis C, then which of the following is true?

� −3 −2 � � 3 −2
�
(A) T (C) = 3 1 (B) T (C) = −3 1
� −3 −1
� � 3 −1
�
(C) T (C) = 3 2 (D) T (C) = −3 2

3. Which of the following pairs of regular expressions are not

equivalent?

(A) xx� and x� x (B) x(yx)� and (xy)� x

(C) x(xx)� and (xx)� x (D) (xy)� and x� y � .

1
4. Consider the disc on the (x, y) plane with centre at (0, 1) and
radius 1 unit. Let A be the highest point on the disk, that is,
(0, 2). If this disk rolls on the x-axis such that its centre is now
at (1, 1), then the new coordinates of A are

� �
(A) 1 + sin(1/2π), 1 + cos(1/2π)
� �
(B) 1 + sin(1), 1 + cos(1)
� �
(C) 1 + sin(1/2π), 1 − cos(1/2π)
(D) (1, 2)

5. Let f : [0, 1] → (0, ∞) be a continuous function. Define

�x
g(x) = 0 f (t) dt for 0 ≤ x ≤ 1. If g(1) = 1, the equation
g(x) = 1/2

(A) may not have a solution.

(B) may have more than one solution.
(C) will have at least two solutions.
(D) will have a unique solution.

6. Let A = �a1 a0 � and B = �b1 b0 � be two 2-bit numbers and

C = �c3 c2 c1 c0 � be a 4-bit number, where c0 = a0 , c1 = a1 ⊕ b0 ,
c2 = b1 ⊕ a1 b0 , and c3 = a1 b0 b1 (‘⊕’ denotes the XOR
operation). If X + Y and XY denote the arithmetic sum and
product (of X and Y ) respectively, which of the following is true?

(A) C = A + B (B) C = AB
(C) C = 2A + B (D) C = A + 2B

2
 7. Let A = {a1 , a2 , . . . , an } be a set of n natural numbers and
let n be odd. For any finite set X ⊆ N, Max(X) and Min(X)
denote the maximum and minimum elements in X respectively.
Let |X| denote the number of elements in X. If |X| is odd,
Median(X) returns the (|X| + 1)/2-th smallest element in X.
Consider the following pseudo-code, which takes as input the
set A and outputs a set S.

1: function fun(A)
2: Y := {a1 , a2 , a3 }
3: m := Median(Y )
4: Y := Y \ {m}
5: for i = 4 to n do
6: Y := Y ∪ {ai }
7: m := Median(Y )
8: Y := Y \ {m}
9: S := Y
10: Return S

Which of the following is not correct?

(A) Median(A) = Median(A \ S)
(B) Max(A) = Max(S)
(C) Min(A) = Min(S)
(D) There is an x ∈ S, such that Min(A) < x < Max(A).

√ √
3
√
1+ 2+ 3 + ··· + n
n
8. The lim
n→∞ n

(A) is equal to 0. (B) is equal to 2.

(C) is equal to 1. (D) does not exist.

3
 9. Let A and B be two arrays of size n, each containing the
numbers {1, 2, . . . , n} in some order. The operations allowed on
the entries of the arrays are comparisons between two entries
and swapping two entries. Consider the best possible algorithm
to transform the array A to array B using the above two
operations only. The total number of operations in which the
above algorithm can perform this task in the worst case is

(A) a constant (B) n

(C) n! (D) none of these

10. For w ∈ C, let Re(w) and Im(w) denote the real and imaginary
parts of w, respectively. Suppose z ∈ C is such that |z| = 1.
Which of the following is necessarily true?

(A) Re(z) is rational implies that Re(z 2 ) is rational.

(B) Re(z 2 ) is rational implies that Re(z) is rational.
(C) Im(z) is rational implies that Im(z 2 ) is rational.
(D) Im(z 2 ) is rational implies that Im(z) is rational.

11. Suppose A is an n × n matrix for some n ≥ 2. Then An = 0 if

and only if

(A) A = 0 (B) all the eigenvalues of A are zero.

(C) A is singular. (D) Rank(A) ≤ 1

12. Let A1 and A2 be two arbitrarily chosen subsets of {1, 2, . . . , n}.

The number of ways such that A1 ∩ A2 = ∅ is

(A) 2n (B) 4n − 3n (C) 3n (D) 3n − 1

4
13. The following program Check takes as input a graph and an
integer and outputs True or False.

1: function Check(G = (V, E), k)

2: if for all vertices u and v in V , edge (u, v) ∈ E then
3: if the number of vertices is at least k then
4: Return True
5: else
6: Return False
7: Let u and v be vertices in V such that (u, v) �∈ E
8: A := V \ {v}
9: Return Check(A, k)

Which of the following is true about the program?

(A) There exists an input graph G and an integer k such that

the program Check(A, k) never halts.
(B) For all input graphs G and integers k, the program
Check(A, k) outputs True if and only if there are at least k
vertices in the graph G.
(C) For all input graphs G and integers k, the program
Check(A, k) outputs True if and only if there is a subset
S of k vertices in the graph and all the vertices in S are
connected to each other by an edge.
(D) For all input graphs G and integers k, the program
Check(A, k) outputs True if and only if for all subsets S of
k vertices in the graph, all the vertices in S are connected
to each other by an edge.

5
 x 1
14. The maximum value of the function f (x) = 2
− 1+x2
on the set
{x ∈ R : x(x − 1) ≤ 12} is

(A) 0 (B) 33/17 (C) −8/5 (D) −1

15. If P and Q are two propositions, then the expression

(P ∧ (P → Q)) → Q is

(A) always true. (B) true for only one assignment.

(C) always false. (D) false for only one assignment.

16. Let n ≥ 2. Suppose α1 , α2 , · · · , αn are real numbers such that

α1 < α2 < · · · < αn . Let

P (x) = (x − α1 )2 (x − α2 ) · · · (x − αn ), x ∈ R .

If P � is the derivative of P , then P � (x) has

(A) no real root.
(B) n real roots, the smallest of which is α1 .
(C) n − 1 real roots, the smallest of which is α1 .
(D) n real roots, the smallest of which is strictly larger than α1 .

17. Let p(x) be a polynomial in x of degree k ≥ 0. For n = 1, 2, . . . ,

define an = p(n + 1) − p(n). If {an }∞
n=1 is in AP, then we must
have
(A) k ≤ 1 (B) k ≤ 2 (C) k ≥ 3 (D) k ≥ 4

6
 �n 1
18. Let Sn = k=1 k . Then

n
(A) S2n ≥ 2
for every n ≥ 1
(B) Sn is a bounded sequence.
(C) |S2n − S2n−1 | → 0 as n → ∞
Sn
(D) n
→ 1 as n → ∞

19. If
20212024 = 100 m + n ,

for some m ∈ {0, 1, 2, . . .} and n ∈ {0, 1, . . . , 99}, then the value

of n is

(A) 21 (B) 31 (C) 61 (D) 81

20. Let G be a simple undirected graph. For a vertex u ∈ V (G),

let NG (u) denote the set of neighbours of u in G, i.e.,
NG (u) = {v : uv ∈ E(G)}. Let H be the undirected graph
having V (H) = V (G) and E(H) = {uv : NG (u)∩NG (v) �= ∅}. If
G is a connected bipartite graph, then the number of connected
components of H:

(A) is exactly one (B) can be either one or two

(C) is exactly two (D) can be any positive integer

21. What is the maximum number of nonzero values in the

adjacency matrix of a directed graph that has 36 vertices, but
no self-loops?

(A) 36 (B) 180 (C) 630 (D) 1260

7
22. Let A and B be two real symmetric square matrices with the
property that both A and B have the same set of eigenvectors.
Then, which of the following is always true?

(A) A = B (B) AB = BA
−1
(C) A = B (D) AAT = BB T

23. Consider the following pseudo-code.

1: function f (n, m)
2: if m = 0 then
3: return 1
4: if m = 1 then
5: return n
6: Return f (n, � m2 �) · f (n − � m2 �, � m2 �)

Which of the following is true?

(A) f (n, m) = nm (B) f (n, m) = (n + 1 − m)m

� �m
(C) f (n, m) = n!
(n−m)!
(D) f (n, m) = n(n−1)
n−m

24. The value of

� 1 � 1
3/2
ey dy dx
0 x2

is
2
(A) (e − 1) (B) e − 1
3

2e 2e 3
(C) (D) −
3 3 2

8
25. Consider the curves
1 1
y1 (x) = x + x5 ,
2 2
1 3 1 7
y2 (x) = x + x,
2 2
1 3 1 7
y3 (x) = 1 + x + x .
2 2

Which of the following is true?

(A) y1 and y2 meet at 2 points, y1 and y3 meet at 1 point.

(B) y1 and y2 meet at 3 points, y1 and y3 meet at 2 points.
(C) y1 and y2 meet at more than 3 points, y1 and y3 meet at 1
point.
(D) y1 and y2 meet at 3 points, y1 and y3 meet at 1 point.

26. Which of the following regular expressions is equivalent to the

non-deterministic finite automaton shown in the figure below?

𝒂, 𝒃
𝒃 𝒃

𝒂 𝒃

(A) (a∗ b∗ a)∗ (� ∪ aa∗ b∗ ) (B) (aa∗ bb∗ a)(� ∪ aa∗ ∪ bb∗ )
(C) (aa∗ bb∗ a)(� ∪ aa∗ ∪ aa∗ bb∗ ) (D) (aa∗ bb∗ a)∗ (� ∪ aa∗ b∗ )

9
27. The 26 letters of the alphabet are randomly permuted. What
is the probability that at least two of the three letters I, N, D
come next to each other?

72 3 3 3
(A) (B) (C) (D)
325 26 13 25 × 26

28. There are two coins in a box. One of the coins is a fair coin and
for the other, the probability of head is 23 . A coin is chosen at
random from the box and tossed 5 times. Given that at least 4
heads were obtained, what is the conditional probability that
the fair coin was chosen?

729 1 2 243
(A) 2521
(B) 2
(C) 3
(D) 275

29. For x, y ≥ 0, consider the regions A = {(x, y) ∈ R2 : x2 +y 2 ≤ 1}

and B = {(x, y) ∈ R2 : x4 + y 4 > 1}. Then

(A) A ⊂ B (B) B ⊂ A
(C) A ∩ B = ∅ (D) A ∪ B = R2

� √ �
30. Let S = { −ba√5 b a 5 : a, b ∈ Z}. The number of A ∈ S such
that A−1 is also in S is

(A) 2 (B) 4
(C) more than 4 but finite (D) infinite

10