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@quantclub.iitbhu

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 About The Club
The Quant Club, IIT BHU

The world of Quant is ablaze with a lucrative mix of mathematics, programming,

logic, and finance, offering a transformative career.
The Quant Club, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi, offers the flames
to kindle your enthusiasm as you set sail in this challenging journey to mould your
dreams into actions.
Quantitative finance fuses mathematics, statistics, and programming to scrutinize
financial markets for informed trading decisions. Its skyrocketing popularity opens
doors to dynamic careers in high-frequency trading, quantitative research, and risk
management, inviting curious and driven individuals to excel.
The Quant Club is committed to nurturing students in this highly competitive domain.
We are dedicated to providing students with a robust platform for collaboration,
learning, skill-building and problem-solving. We are gearing up to offer informative
workshops, host competitive events and actively participate in inter-college events,
enabling students to showcase their immense talent in this evolving field and catapult
them to the global stage.
The Quant Club is determined to equip individuals with the knowledge, skills, and
experience needed to address real-world challenges and meet the evolving demands of
the industry. Together, we will embark on a journey of exploration, innovation, and
excellence in the captivating realm of Quant.

I
 Preface
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In the dynamic world of quantitative finance, the roles of traders, developers, and
researchers have become increasingly vital. These professionals harness mathematics
and advanced algorithms to navigate complex financial markets.
Success in quantitative roles demands a deep understanding of mathematics, statistics,
programming, and the ability to think under high-pressure circumstances. Interviews
for quant positions are rigorous assessments where candidates must demonstrate
proficiency in these areas.
Whether you are an experienced quant or an aspiring candidate, this compilation
of problems is a valuable resource for honing your skills across various quantitative
profiles.
This carefully curated collection of problems from quant interviews and tests, as
conducted by esteemed firms like Optiver, NK Securities, Graviton, Quadeye, and
others, aims to provide insights into the skills and knowledge required in this domain.
It encompasses a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from brain teasers and puzzles
to probability, statistics, and other mathematical tools. By studying these questions,
you can gain a deeper appreciation of the expectations of top firms and enhance your
problem-solving abilities.
Consider this booklet your launchpad to refine your quantitative skills and expand
your knowledge. As you tackle these questions and grasp the underlying principles,
you will find the field of Quant to be exhilarating, honing your intellectual prowess.

May your pursuit be as rewarding as challenging it is!

II
 1. Take a shuffled deck of 52 playing cards. You draw 3 cards.
What is the probability that you have at least one red and at
least one black card?

2. 2 players toss a coin until a sequence of a head followed by

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a tail is observed (HT), and the person tossing the tail wins.
What is the probability A wins, given he starts?

3. Calculate the probability of selecting two different numbers

between 1 and 100, where the second number is exactly twice
the value of the first number.

4. On a standard 8x8 chessboard, what is the maximum number

of knights (horses) that can be placed such that none of them
are in attacking positions?

5. Two squares are chosen at random on a chessboard. What is

the probability that they have a side in common?

6. The police plans to enforce speed limits during morning rush

hours on four different routes into the city. The traps on
routes A, B, C and D are operated 40%, 30%, 20% and 30% of
the time, respectively. Biff always speeds to work and has a
probability of 0.2, 0.1, 0.5 and 0.2 of using those routes. What
is the probability that he’ll get a ticket on any one morning?

7. You roll four dice and multiply their values together. What is
the probability that this product is an even number?

8. You roll four dice and take the sum of the three lowest values.
What is the probability that this sum is equal to 3?
 9. You(A) are the leader of a group of robbers (A, B, C, D, E) who
have stolen 100 gold bricks from the gold storage facility of a
bank. The robbers have a hierarchical order among themselves.
You are at the top tier of the hierarchy, followed by B, C, D and
E in that order. You propose a division plan, and the robbers
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vote on it. If at least half of the group (including the proposer)

agrees on the plan, the gold is split according to your proposal.
If not, you are shot dead, and B now proposes a plan. This
process continues until a proposal is accepted. All the robbers
are extremely smart and extremely greedy. How should you
plan to divide the gold bricks?

10. Cards are dealt one by one from a pack of 52 well-shuffled cards.
What is the probability that exactly ’k’ cards are dealt before
the 1st ace appears?

11. Suppose that you roll a dice. For each roll, you are paid the
face value. If a roll gives 4, 5 or 6, you can roll the dice again.
Once you get 1,2 or 3, the game stops. What is the expected
payoff of this game?

12. On average, how many rolls would it take to get two of the
same face when rolling a fair die? For example, if the run of
rolls is 12545 or 636, how many rolls would it take?

13. 64 people are standing on an 8×8 chessboard, facing randomly

chosen neighbours. If two people face each other, they will give
each other a high five. On average, how many high fives can
we expect to see?
 14. Take a shuffled deck of 52 playing cards and throw the first top
10 cards in the bin. What is the probability that the new top
card is red?

15. You roll three dice. What is the probability that two of these
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dice sum to an even number?

16. A couple decide to start having children and keep having chil-
dren until they have the same number of boys and girls. How
many children do they expect to have?

17. Consider a shuffled deck of 52 cards. How many cards, on

average, do you need to draw before you draw an Ace?

18. A rabbit either jumps 1 step forward or backwards. The

probability that it jumps forward is 0.4. Find the probability
that at the end of 11 steps, it is 1 step away from the starting
point.

19. You have a sticker album, and there are 5 different types of
stickers you want to collect to complete the album. Each time
you get a sticker, it could be any one of the 5 types. What is
the expected number of stickers you need to collect until you
have at least one of each type?

20. Suppose you have $50, which is used to gamble on a series of

coin flips. For each head, you win $2; for each tail, you lose $1.
What is the probability that you will run out of money?

21. There are 200 kids at a Christmas party. The Santa at the party
has 100 identical chocolates with him. Since there are more
kids than chocolates, to avoid unfairness to any kid, he decided
 to distribute all of the 100 chocolates so that the probability
of any kid receiving a chocolate is the same. He then picked
two groups of kids where the first group consisted of the first 8
kids and second group consisted of the last 4 kids.
a) What is the expected number of kids who get at least one
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chocolate?
b) What is the expected value of the difference in the total
number of chocolates between the kids in the first group and
the kids in the second group?

22. A class of 250 children are to be given sweets on children’s day.

250 sweets are to be distributed among children one by one.
Each sweet has a label with the name of the student it belongs
to. The first student being the naughtiest, decides to take a
random sweet (equally likely for each sweet). All the other
students, being disciplined, will go for the sweet, which has
their name on it. If no such sweet is available, they will select
a random sweet. What is the probability that the last student
will get the sweet with his/her name on it?

23. John is playing a game with his friend Luke in which they
have a basketball of radius ’r’. Now John marks a small point
on this basketball and asks Luke what the expected shortest
distance of the marked point from all other points on the given
basketball (the shortest distance goes through the ball instead
of lying on its outer surface) is. Help Luke find the answer to
this question.

24. In an Aeronautics lab, an automated drone is being tested

in a cubical room, and it is programmed to only move along
the edges of the room. The drone is autonomous and moves
 randomly by choosing any edge with equal probability. The
drone starts its flight from one corner of the room and has to
travel to the farthest corner from there by only moving along
the edges of the room. What is the expected number of edges
the drone travels to complete the flight?
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25. An apartment complex has a common laundry space that all

the residents share. On a certain day, 20 residents give their
shirts to wash to the janitor, who puts them all in the same
washing machine. Once the clothes are ready, the janitor picks
the shirts and gives them randomly to the 20 residents. What
is the expected number of (unordered) pairs of residents who
end up with each other’s shirt?

26. Linda has a diving competition coming up. Everyone knows

it is unfair, and the judge is blind. The judge randomly gives
people a rating between 1 to 10, all integral. There is an option
to challenge the rating and ask for a rematch twice, that is
three matches at max. Linda has to accept whatever rating she
gets in the match she plays the final time. Suppose Linda gets
a rating of 7 the first time. She can either accept this rating
and quit the game or challenge it. Let us say she decides to
challenge it and gets a rating of 5 the second time. Now Linda
has to either accept 5 as her final rating or ask for a rematch
one last time. If she chooses to go for a rematch, whatever
she gets as the rating now would be final. What would be the
maximum expected rating Linda can get in the competition?
 27. You have decided to start investing in the stock market. You
find out that there is a stock currently trading at Rs.1000 and
that it can move up by 1 rupee or down by the same amount
with equal probability at each minute. What is the probability
of the stock price going to 1003 before going to 998?
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28. You are attending a fair. In one of the games at the fair, the
host has arranged 6 boxes on a table. The host claims that
one of the boxes has a PS5 in it, while the others are empty.
You are allowed to choose any box. Once you choose a box,
the host opens up 1 of the remaining 5 boxes to reveal that it’s
empty. Now the host gives you a chance to switch your initial
box choice or stick to it. What should you do?
Bonus: How would the probabilities change if the host opens
up 3 boxes instead of 1 to reveal that they’re empty before
giving you a chance to switch?

29. Let’s consider the case of some famous card games. In poker,
each player is dealt a hand of 5 cards, and the strongest hand
still in play wins. In poker’s ranking system, the strongest
possible hand is a straight flush, with 5 cards of the same suit,
with their ranks in sequence. If two players hold a straight flush,
the one with the higher top card wins. The hand A-K-Q-J-10
(of the same suit) is the highest possible straight flush, also
called the royal flush. The next in hierarchy is four of a kind,
which means 4 cards of the same rank and one of a different
rank. In India, there’s a game similar to poker in some ways,
yet different, called Teen Patti. Teen Patti involves three cards
per hand, compared to poker’s five. Also, while Teen Patti
doesn’t allow players to change any cards they’ve been dealt,
poker allows them to discard cards and draw new ones. In
Teen Patti, the strongest combination is taken as the ’trio’ or
 ’trail’. It means the player has three cards of the same rank,
such as A-A-A or 7-7-7. The second best combination is the
straight flush (three cards in sequence, same suit). In poker,
the straight flush’s top rank implies it has a lower probability
of appearing than four of a kind, which is ranked lower. On
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the other hand, in Teen Patti, the trio ranks higher than the
straight flush. Is the ranking system flawed in one of the games
or both?

30. It is known that each of the four people A, B, C and D tells the
truth with 1/3 probability, and their decisions are independent
of others. Suppose that
• A makes a statement to B;
• and then B tells C whether A was telling the truth or not;
• after that C tells D whether B says A was telling the truth
or not;
• Finally D says that C says that B says that A was telling
the truth.
What is the probability that A was actually telling the truth?

31. A particular 12-hour digital clock displays the hour and minute
of a day. Unfortunately, whenever it is supposed to display the
number 1, it mistakenly displays the number 9. For example,
when it is 1:16 PM, the clock incorrectly shows 9:96 PM. If
we randomly watch this clock for the whole day, what’s the
probability that the clock shows the correct time?
 32. On an 8x8 chessboard, we introduce a new piece called ”jockey”,
which moves farther than a knight. A jockey can move 2 steps
vertically and 3 steps horizontally, or 3 steps vertically and 2
steps horizontally, e.g. a1 → c4 → f2 → h5 →...
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a) Prove that from any position on the chessboard, a jockey

can move into the central area (defined as the area of d4, d5,
e4, e5).
b) If a jockey starts from the bottom left (a1), can it legally
move to any other position in finite steps? Provide reasoning
for yes or no.
c) A jockey starts from the bottom left (a1), moves to the next
random possible position with equal chances (if 2 directions
are possible, each with probability 0.5, if 4 possible, each with
0.25 probability, etc.), and repeat such moves until it returns
to (a1) and stops. What is the probability that it will return in
finite steps? If it returns in finite steps, what is the expected
number of steps that it moves?

33. There are 9 identical-looking coins, only one of which is a fake

coin lighter than the others, and all real coins weigh the same.
Besides, we have three apparently identical balances (the kind
 that doesn’t tell the exact weight), and one balance is broken
whose outcomes are unrelated to the actual situations. How
can we find the fake coin in four weightings?

34. A certain company has 100 departments, with two people in

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each department, a manager and his assistant. Some assistants

are secretly involved in corruption. All managers know about
the nature of every assistant except their own assistant. When
a manager concludes that his assistant is involved in corruption,
he fires his assistant publicly at the end of the day. One day,
the company’s CFO announces that there is at least one corrupt
assistant in the company. After the announcement, no one
talks, waiting for someone to get fired. Till the end of the 9th
Day, from the announcement, no assistant was fired, but at the
end of the 10th Day, some assistants got fired simultaneously.
How many are there?

35. Find all positive integers n with the following property: The
k positive divisors of n have a permutation (d1 , d2 , ..., dk ) such
that for every i = 1, 2, ... , k, the number d1 + d2 + ... + di is a
perfect square.
(Perfect Squares are the squares of whole numbers such as 1, 4,
9, 16, 25 and so on.)

36. There are three bells - ringing at 30, 60 and 90 min intervals.
All three of them are started (not necessarily at the same time).
Given an instance of time, what is the probability that the
60-minute bell is the first one to ring after that instance of
time?
 37. The Dean of Prodigy Institute offers 80 students, numbered
from 1 to 80, a chance to secure a $50K Scholarship if they
solve the challenge he posed. The dean sets up a room with
80 lockers and puts one student’s number in each closed locker.
Students can enter the room one after another. Each student
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is allowed to check a maximum of 40 lockers for his number. If,

during this search, every student finds their number in one of
the lockers, all students get the scholarship. If even one of the
students fails to find their number, no one gets a scholarship.
The students can discuss a strategy before the first student
enters the room but cannot communicate once the process
starts. Given that they devise a strategy optimally, what is
the probability that the students earn the scholarship?

38. The cliché Alice - Bob pair is back. This time they’re playing a
dice game. Alice has a normal die with numbers marked from
1 to 6. However, Bob has devised a strange 6-faced die where
the numbers on the faces can be any non-negative integer, with
the only constraint that the sum of numbers on the 6 faces is
the same as the sum of numbers on the 6 faces of a normal die.
Now Alice and Bob roll their dice. If the result of the roll is
a tie, they roll again. Otherwise, the person with the larger
number on the roll is the winner.
a) Out of all possible strange dice that Bob could have come
up with, find all such strange dice that would give Bob the
maximum probability of winning the game.
b) What is the maximum probability of Bob winning?
 39. There’s an event to be organized in a circular park. The middle
of the park has a fountain. Three points have to be identified
on the park’s circumference for a fence to be installed along
the lines connecting these points. What is the probability that
the fencing encloses the fountain?
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40. A certain school organised a competition to identify the wittiest

of all students. In the final round of the competition, the 3
finalists were invited for a ’guess game’. In the game, the
teacher would blindfold the students and tie a bow (of either
red or black colour) on each student. Once the blindfolds were
removed, every student could see the colours of the bows of
the other 2 students. The teacher asked the students to press
a buzzer if they could see at least 1 red bow among the bows
they saw. The fastest one to guess the colour of their bow
would be declared the winner. The teacher tied red bows to
all the students. After the blindfolds were lifted, all 3 students
pressed the buzzer according to the rules. After a while, one
of the students answered - ”I have a red coloured bow”. He
won the coveted prize. How did he guess? At the end of the
competition, the other students complained that the winner of
the round had taken a pause before giving his answer, which
made the game unfair. Based on the allegations, the teacher
decided to devise a truly fair game. He started with 5 bows
- 2 red and 3 black. The teacher used 3 of the 5 bows on the
students. Once again, the students were blindfolded, and bows
were tied. Even before the blindfolds could be opened, the
winner of the previous round announced the colour of his bow.
And to everyone’s amusement, he won again. What did he
answer, and how?
 41. Ross and Joey have been working at the firm for a long time and
have worked on various projects with different teams. During
an office party, they got to talking, and they were wondering
whether there is an employee of the firm who has worked
with both of them. Both Joey and Ross have worked with 50
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employees of the firm, out of a total 1000 people working there.

They think that it’s very unlikely that there is an employee of
the firm who has worked with both of them. Assume that the
50 employees Joey has worked with 50 are a random sample of
the 1000 employees of the firm (equally likely to be any 50 of
the 1000), and similarly for Ross. Also, assume that knowing
who Joey has worked with gives no information about who
Ross has worked with.
a) Compute the expected number of people both Joey and Ross
have worked with.
b) Let X be the number of people they both have worked with.
Find the PMF of X.
c) Is the distribution of X one of the important distributions?
If so, which?

42. Mac and Charlie got really drunk and decided to play a game.
They will take turns and throw a bottle at each other until it
hits one of them. Charlie is able to hit Mac only 40% of the
time and is the weaker player. He is allowed to start the game
by throwing first. After some calculations, they found out that
the game favours neither of them. What is Mac’s probability
of hitting Charlie?
(Try learning about Markov Chains and see if it can be used
here.)
 43. Alex found 100 pieces of rope in his backyard. He started
playing a game by picking 2 random ends and tying them
together (the ends need not be of the same piece). He continues
doing so until there are no more free ends left. Find the expected
number of loops at the end of the game.
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44. We play a game. The pot starts at $0. On every turn, you flip
a fair coin. If you flip heads, I add $100 to the pot. If you
flip tails, I take all of the money out of the pot, and you are
assessed a ”strike.” You can stop the game before any flip and
collect the contents of the pot, but if you get 3 strikes, the game
is over, and you win nothing. Find, with proof, the expected
value of your winnings if you follow an optimal strategy.

45. There are n biased coins c1, c2, c3, ... ith coin has a prob of
getting head of 1/(2i+ 1), What is the probability of getting an
odd number of heads when all n coins are flipped as a function
of n.

46. A tunnel has 6 red balls, 3 green balls and 10 blue balls lined
up randomly. Each second, the first ball falls off the tunnel
from one end. What is the expected number of seconds before
you see the first blue ball falling?

47. In a bike showroom, bikes are in three different colours orange,

blue and yellow. The probabilities of selecting one orange colour
bike and one blue colour bike are 4/15 and 1/3, respectively.
The number of yellow colour bikes is twelve. The bikes are
numbered starting from 1, 2, 3 and so on. When one bike
is selected randomly, then what is the probability that the
selected bike is numbered as a multiple of 4 or 6?
 48. Suppose we have 13 cards from a suit arranged in descending
order: K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. You need to sort the cards
in ascending order but follow a particular fashion while doing
so. At any move, you can take a substring of cards and move
it elsewhere. For example, 5 4 3 could be moved to the right
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by 2 steps to get K Q J 1 0 9 8 7 6 2 1 5 4 3.
What is the minimum number of such moves?

49. If any one-digit number is selected and is multiplied by itself

four times, then find the probability that the unit digit of the
resulting number will be 1 or 6.

50. Given a circle whose perimeter is 1:

a) Randomly pick 2 different points on it. What is the density
function (PDF) of the arc length for the shortest part?
b) Randomly select n different points on it to break it into
parts. What is the expected arc length of the shortest one?

51. a) There are 9 apparently identical-looking coins, only one of

which is lighter than the others and all real coins weigh the
same. We want to use a special balance machine to find the
fake coin in two weighings. The balance machine can’t tell you
the exact weight.
Besides, it doesn’t tell you the results immediately and only
prints the results after you have weighed twice. How can we
find the fake coin in two weighings?
b) Now, suppose there are 8 apparently identical-looking coins.
They might be all real coins, or only one coin is lighter than
the others. Could we use the above balance machine to know
if a fake coin exists and find the fake coin if it exists in two
weighings? Justify your conclusion.
 c) What’s the conclusion if the number of coins is 7 and the
other conditions remain the same as in (b)?

52. Anna writes a sequence of integers starting with the number 12.
Each subsequent integer she writes is chosen randomly with
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equal chance from among the positive divisors of the previous

integer (including the possibility of the integer itself). She
keeps writing integers until she writes the integer 1 for the first
time, and then she stops. One such sequence is
12, 6, 6, 3, 3, 3, 1.
What is the expected value of the number of terms in Anna’s
sequence?

53. Prove that in any set of 181 square integers, there exists a
subset of 19 numbers whose sum is divisible by 19.

54. Three spiders are sitting at the corners of an equilateral triangle.

Every spider begins randomly, picks a direction and moves along
the triangle’s edge. What is the probability that none of the
spiders collide with each other?

55. There is a 50% probability of occurrence of flood in a city.

There is a 30% probability of occurrence of drought in the same
city. What is the range of probability that at least one of the
calamities will occur?

56. a) Given a fair dice. Let X be a random variable which indicates

the number of occurrences of 1 on rolling this fair dice 144
times. What is the Var of X?
b) Now, consider a scenario where you have two dice, one with
a probability of occurrence of 1 as 1/4 and 1/12 on the other.
 Now, for Experiment 2, you randomly select one out of these
two dice and roll that selected dice 144 times. Again, random
var. X is defined in the same way. What is Var of X in this
case?
c) Now, consider the case when you randomly select one of the
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two dice at each of the 144 rolls. Again, X is defined in the

same way (i.e. number of occurrences of 1 in 144 rolls). Now,
what is the Var of X?

57. There is a bacteria (at t=0) which dies, survives and divides
into 2, all three outcomes with equal probability at each instant.
a) What is the probability that the bacteria population survives
till t=2?
b) Let P(t) denote the probability of survival of the bacteria
population till time t. Derive a recurrence relation between
P(t) and P(t-1).

58. Find the probability that x/y rounded off to nearest integer,
would be even if x and y ∈ (0, 1)

59. Find the number of permutations of numbers from 1 to 3k+1

such that any prefix sum is not divisible by 3.

60. Consider a circle with a radius of n. There are 2n equally

spaced points on the circumference of this circle. you are at
some point among these 2n points facing towards the centre.
You start a random walk with an equal probability of moving to
the left or right one step at a time (only on these points), facing
towards the centre. What is the expected number of steps to
reach the point which is at 14 th the circumference distance to
your right? (The walk stops when you reach this point)
 61. 2 parameters are given for each of n persons. So if a person is
better in both the parameters than the second, then the second
one need not be chosen. How will you choose the largest subset
such that no unnecessary person is chosen? What if there are
n parameters?
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62. 2 dice having values between 0-5, what is the probability that
the square of the sum of the numbers on them is even? What
if there are n dice?

63. 2 dice having values between 0-1000, what is the probability

of square of the sum of the numbers on them is less than a
million.

64. You stand at some point on Earth. You move one km south,
one km east, and one km north and end up at the same spot.
Name one such point. How many such points are there?

65. Find the number of ways to reach (16,16) from (0,0) if right
and up are the only moves allowed and we need an even number
of turns.

66. Each of the 49 entries in a square 7 × 7 table is filled with an

integer, 1,2,...,7, so that each column contains all of the seven
integers and the table is symmetric with respect to its diagonal
D going from the upper left corner to the lower right corner.
What is the probability that the diagonal D has all the integers
1, 2, . . . , 7?
 67. There are n coins; let k denote the number of coins facing heads
up. Then flip the kth coin, and continue this operation till
infinity. What is the probability that there will be all tails
combination eventually?
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68. A solitaire game is played with R red cards, W white cards,

and B blue cards. A player plays all the cards one at a time.
With each play, he accumulates a penalty. If he plays a blue
card, he is charged a penalty which is the number of white
cards still in his hand. If he plays a white card, he is charged a
penalty which is twice the number of red cards still in his hand.
If he plays a red card, he is charged a penalty of three times
the number of blue cards still in his hand. Find, as a function
of R, W and B, the minimal total penalty a player can attain.

69. There are 7 stones in a row labelled 1 to 7 from left to right. A

rabbit starts at stone 1 and on each turn hops to a new stone
that he hasn’t visited yet. What is the probability that the
rabbit made exactly one jump leftwards?

70. Given a stick where you have to put two cuts, what is the
probability that the pieces form a triangle?

71. There are three mothers, Mrs. A, Mrs. B and Mrs. C . Each
has two children.
a) Mrs. A tells you her oldest child is a girl. What’s the
probability she has two girls?
b) Mrs. B tells you one of her children is a girl. What’s the
probability she has two girls?
c) Mrs. C tells you one of her children is a girl born on Tuesday.
What’s the probability she has two girls?
 72. Buses arrive at regular intervals of 10 minutes. What is the
expected waiting time? What will be the answer if the buses
come late with a probability of 0.5 by 5 minutes? Finally, what
will be the answer if the bus comes late by 1 minute? Isn’t it
weird, and why?
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73. A coin is tossed 10 times, and the output is written as a string.

What is the expected number of HH?

74. In a game with a deck of 52 cards, you and your friend each
have one card. You must correctly guess your card, and your
friend must do the same. They both know each other’s cards.
They can discuss their strategy before playing the game. What
is the maximum chance of them winning the game by guessing
correctly when they are sequentially revealing their guesses?

75. What is the expected number of moves required to reach the

state HTH?

76. You have 5 distinct sets of 3 blocks. Six blocks are removed
at random. Compute the expected number of complete sets
remaining.

77. Piglet and Roo are working part-time at a coffee shop. Piglet’s
shift is 30 minutes long and Roo’s shift is 45 minutes long. They
each independently pick a uniformly random time between 8:00
and 9:00 to start working. What is the probability Piglet and
Roo will encounter each other while on shift?
 78. Three investors are independently deciding whether to invest
in a new company. Two of them have a 1/2 chance of investing,
but one has a 4/5 chance of investing. What is the probability
that exactly two people will invest in the company?
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79. You have nine blocks, where seven of them are labeled from
1 through 7 and the remaining two are indistinguishable and
labeled with 8. Compute the number of ways I can pick a set
of three blocks such that at least one block is even.

80. You roll 2 dice. To maximize your expected sum of their values,
you can roll any of them again. What is your expected sum of
values?

81. What is the expected number of throws a 6 sided die should

be thrown to get 1 and 2 (in any order) for the first time in
consecutive throws?

82. There are 6 balls in a box. 2 identical green, 2 identical red, 2

identical blue. The balls are placed randomly in a line. What
is the expected number of adjacent pairs with different ball
color?

83. Three real numbers are chosen from the interval U[0, 6] inde-
pendently and uniformly at random. What is the probability
that the smallest number is between 2 and 3?

84. In a tic-tac-toe, if we put a cross randomly in four of the nine

boxes, what is the probability that three of these crosses form
a line?
 85. If a and b are chosen independently and uniformly randomly
from the interval [0, 1], what is the probability that a/b lies in
the interval [1, 2]?

86. Find the smallest number which is a perfect square ending with
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5 whose digits are a permutation of 1 to 9.

87. You picked up 4 cards randomly from a shuffled deck of cards

which included only four aces and four 2s (total 8 cards).
Your friend ’B’ picked up a card out of the 4 cards randomly
and told you that it is an Ace. You then shuffled the same 4
cards well. ’B’ picked up a card at random from you and told
was an Ace again.
What is the expected sum of the 4 cards?

88. Imagine that n people throw their hats into a box and then
randomly pick one hat each. Find the variance of X, which
represents the number of people who end up picking their own
hats.

89. Let A,B be 3x3 matrices with integer entries such that A, A+B,
A+2B, A+3B, A+4B, A+5B, A+6B are all invertible matrices,
whose inverse have integer entries. Now, show that A+7B is
also invertible and its inverse has integer entries .

90. a) Alice and Bob are playing a game. Alice deals a shuffled
pack of cards and places them face up one at a time. Bob can
pause Alice at any time and place a SI bet that the next card
will be red. If Bob is correct he doubles up.
Note: He can only bet once. And if he does not bet. It will be
automatically considered that he bet before the last card. How
can Bob maximize his expectation value?
 b) The game is now modified. Instead of only being allowed to
bet once. Bob can get any number of times, with any fraction
of his leftover amount. He can also choose the colour he wants
to get on. He always gets fair odds. A simple strategy could
be to only get on the last card. As its colour is always known
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by cards opened before it. So Bob can always end up with 2

dollars.
Show that betting everything each time maximizes his expected
outcome. He wants to maximize his worst case winnings. (min-
imum money he is left with in all possible card combinations).
What strategy should he use to bet?

91. An equilateral triangle with side length 3 is divided into 9

congruent triangular cells, as shown in the figure below. Ini-
tially, all the cells contain 0. A move consists of selecting
two adjacent cells (i.e., cells sharing a common boundary) and
either increasing or decreasing the numbers in both cells by 1
simultaneously. Determine all positive integers such that after
performing several such moves, one can obtain 9 consecutive
numbers n, (n+1), ..., (n+8) in some order.
 92. There are 200 traders and 6 stocks to be traded. At least 120
traders trade on each stock. Each trader can trade on multiple
stocks and each trader trades at least one stock. Will there
exist at least one pair of traders such that the union of stocks
traded by them covers all 6 stocks? How?
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93. There is a black box that gives a number between 0 and 1

with uniform distribution. What is the expected value of the
maximum of two such queries to the black box?

94. There are 4 people A, B, C and D who want to cross the bridge
in night. A takes w minute to cross the bridge. B takes x
minutes to cross the bridge. C takes y minutes to cross the
bridge. D takes z minutes to cross the bridge. There is only one
torch with them and the bridge cannot be crossed without the
torch. There cannot be more than two persons on the bridge
at any time, and when two people cross the bridge together,
they must move at the slower person’s pace.
Find the minimum time in which the group can cross the bridge
if:
a) w = 1, x = 3, y = 4 and z = 10
b) w = 1, x = 2, y = 5 and z = 10
Explain the strategy followed by the people for both the cases
separately.

95. How many winning lines are present in a 3x3x3 tic-tac-toe?

96. 2023 prisoners are given a chance to be set free tomorrow. Each
prisoner is wearing a hat that will be either of the four colors
- red, blue, green and yellow. Each prisoner can see everyone
else’s hat but not his own. The hat colors are assigned randomly
 and once the hats are placed on top of each prisoner’s head
they cannot communicate with one another in any form, or else
they are immediately executed. The prisoners will be called
out in random order and the prisoner called out will guess the
color of his hat. Each prisoner declares the color of his hat so
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that everyone else can hear it. If a prisoner guesses correctly

the color of his hat, he is set free immediately, otherwise he is
executed. They are given the night to come up with a strategy
among themselves to save as many prisoners as possible. What
is the best strategy they can adopt and how many prisoners
can they guarantee to save?

97. Total number of ways for an ant to reach opposite corner in a

cubical room if it can pass through an edge only once?

98. a) A family has two children. At least one of them is a boy.

What is the probability (P1) that both children are boys?
b) A family has two children. At least one of them is a boy
born on Saturday. What is the probability (P2) that both
children are boys?
c) A family has two children. The older child is a boy. What
is the probability (P3) that both children are boys?
d) A family has two children. At least one of them is a boy born
on January 1st. Let P4 denote the probability of both children
being boys. Arrange P1, P2, P3, and P4 in the non-decreasing
order. Note you do not need to calculate P4.

99. Imagine you are drawing 7 random points on the edge of a

circular cake. What is the chance that all of these points will
be located within a half of the cake?
 100. Imagine you are given a well shuffled deck of 26 cards, 13 black
and 13 red. A run is defined as a block of cards that are
drawn consecutively and all have the same color. For example,
BBBRBB has 3 runs. Find the expected number of runs in a
shuffled deck of 26 cards.
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101. Anton rolls a fair die and records the value he rolls. Afterwards,
he continues rolling the die until he obtains a value at least as
large as the first roll. Let N be the number of rolls after the
first he performs. Find E[N].

102. What is the average number of pairs of consecutive integers in

a randomly selected subset of 5 distinct integers chosen from
the set 1, 2, 3, . . . , 30? For example, if the selected subset is
1, 4, 2, 5, 8, then the pairs of consecutive integers are (1, 2)
and (4, 5).

103. A very sharp, consistently skillful blind archer aimed for the
center of a circular board and shot 2 arrows. He is expected
to hit the aim, but doesn’t hit it for sure. The archer is told
that his first shot is better than second. He tried one more
shot. What is the probability that this 3rd shot is the best
shot among 3? (i.e Probability that 3rd arrow lands closer to
center than his first two shots?).

104. There are N distinct types of coupons in cereal boxes and each
type, independent of prior selections, is equally likely to be in
a box. If a child wants to collect a complete set of coupons
with at least one of each type, how many coupons (boxes)
on average are needed to make such a complete set? If the
child has collected n coupons, what is the expected number of
distinct coupon types?
 105. Find the expected number of rolls of a fair die to get two sixes
in a row.

106. Find the expected number of rolls of a fair die to get a six
followed by a five.
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107. N points are chosen at random on the circumference of a circle.

A convex n-gon (n-sided polygon) is drawn by joining these n
points. What is the probability that the centre of the circle
lies inside the region of the n-gon?

108. On a distant island, there are three kinds of chameleons 13 are

red, 15 are green, and 17 are blue. When two chameleons of
different colours encounter each other, they change their colour
to the third colour. For instance, if a green chameleon and
a red chameleon meet, they both become blue. Can all the
chameleons ever be the same colour?

109. Alice attends a small college in which each class meets only
once a week. She is deciding between 30 non-overlapping
classes. There are 6 classes to choose from for each day of the
week, Monday through Friday. Trusting in the benevolence of
randomness, Alice decides to register for 7 randomly selected
classes out of the 30, with all choices equally likely. What is
the probability that she will have classes every day, Monday
through Friday?

110. Raindrops are falling at an average rate of 20 drops per square

inch per minute. What would be a reasonable distribution
to use for the number of raindrops hitting a particular region
measuring 5 inches2 in t minutes? Why? Using your chosen
 distribution, compute the probability that the region has no
raindrops in a given 3-second time interval.

111. For a group of 7 people, find the probability that all 4 seasons
(winter, spring, summer, fall) occur at least once each among
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their birthdays, assuming that all seasons are equally likely.

112. A stick is broken into two pieces, at a uniformly random chosen

break point. Find the CDF and average of the length of the
longer piece.

113. A crime is committed by one of two suspects, A and B. Ini-

tially, there is equal evidence against both of them. In further
investigation at the crime scene, it was found that the guilty
party had a blood type found in 10 per cent of the population.
Suspect A does match this blood type, whereas the blood type
of Suspect B is unknown.
a) Given this new information, what is the probability that A
is the guilty party?
b) Given this new information, what is the probability that B’s
blood type matches that found at the crime scene?

114. You take a standard shuffled deck of 52 cards and keep flipping
cards over until the first ace appears, which is card #14. What
is the probability that the next card is eight of hearts?

115. A group of 50 people are comparing their birthdays (as usual,

assume their birthdays are independent, are not February 29,
etc.). Find the expected number of pairs of people with the
same birthday, and the expected number of days in the year
on which at least two of these people were born.
 116. Find the expected number of rolls of a fair die to get two sixes
not necessarily in a row.

117. You have a rand(5) generator, How can you create a rand(6)generator
using it?
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118. You have 100 electric cars. Each car can travel a maximum
distance of 1000km using 1 charge. All the cars are initially
uncharged. How would you distribute the one charge in the
beginning, and what’s the maximum distance that you can
travel with these 100 cars and 1 charge?

119. You are given a 100-sided die. After you roll once, you can
choose to either get paid the dollar amount of that roll OR pay
one dollar for one more roll. What is the expected value of the
game? (There is no limit on the number of rolls.)

120. Alice and Bob each have a coin and flip it until they get a
head. If Bob flipped his coin more times than Alice, what is
the expected number of times Alice flipped her coin?
 Answers
13 2r
1. 23.
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17 π
4 24. 10
2.
9 1
25.
1 2
3.
198 26. 7.45
4. 32 2
27.
9 5
5.
128 1 5
28. P(win, !switch)= < P(win, switch)=
6. 0.27 6 24
15 29. The ranking system in teen patti seems to be
7.
16 flawed, as an event with a greater probability of
7 occuring is ranked higher.
8.
432 13
30.
9. 98, 0, 1, 0, 1 41
(4)(48 Ck ) k! 31. f (x) = x + 1, f (x) = −1
10. 52 C
k+1 (k + 1)! 1
32.
11. 7 2
(2 + i) 5 Ci i! 33. a) We can prove, a particular 3 move combi-
12. nation of jockey = 1 move of knight and
6i+1
knight can visit each square.
335
13. 7 or b) follows from part a
36
1 35. 10
14.
2 2
15. 1 36.
9
16. infinite 38. a) (0, 0, 3, 6, 6, 6), (0, 0, 4, 5, 6, 6), (0, 0, 5, 5, 5, 6)

17. 10.6 17
b)
11
32
18. C5 (0.4)5 (0.6)6 + 11
C6 (0.4)6 (0.6)5
1
137 39.
19. 4
12 41. a) 2.5
√ !50
5−1 50
Ck 950 C50−k
20. b)
2 1000 C
50

199 100

 c) HGeom(50, 950, 50)
21. a) 100 1 − 200
2
b) 2 42.
3
1 1 1
22. 43. + + ... + 1
2 199 197

i
 44. $115.625 80. 8.125
n
45. 81. 21
2n + 1
46. 1.81 82. 4
37
1 83.
47. 216
3
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8
48. 12 84.
21
4
49. 1
5 85.
4
53. Check possible remainders of squares when di-
87. 5.5
vided by 19 (there are 10 possible remainders),
1
so, we need 18*10+1 = 181 square integers for 88.
the property to hold by PHP. n
92. Yes
1
54.
4 94. a) 19 minutes
55. 50% − 80% b) 17 minutes
56. a) 20 96. We can save at least 2022 prisoners.
b) 19 1
98. a)
3
c) 20
13
14 b)
57. a) 27
27 1
c)
1 1 2

2
P (t−1)+
b) P (t) = 1 − (1 − P (t − 1))
3 3 d) As more and more details about the boy
child are given, the chance that the other
   
1 1 1 1 1
58. + − + − + ... child is a girl approaches one-half. Hence,
4 3 5 7 9
the relation will be P1 < P2 < P4 < P3.
64. North Pole, Infinite points
105. 42
12
76. 106. 36
13
27 108. No
77.
32
116. 12
9
78. 5
119. 87 14
20
4
79. 59 120. 3

Credits: Yashwini Bansal, Ansh Chaudhary, Aman Agrawal, Ojasva Gupta, Gaurav Gupta,
Shrey Gupta, Kartik Malik, Nikhil Garg

ii