WELCOME TO

AMC10/AIME
Combo 1 CLASS!!!!
WHAT TO EXPECT:
● Minimal optional homework.
Taught by Luke Furness ● 2 hours of class time on 6/15, 6/17, 6/19, 6/21, 6/22,
6/28, and 6/29.
● You guys can ask questions of me at any time (even
outside of class). My email is lukef1729@gmail.com.
● I expect you guys to be actively participating.
● Here is the syllabus.
● In general (looking at the syllabus) the first class will be
easier than the second one.
● Finally, have some fun!!!!!
 Complementary Counting Basics
● The key concept of complementary counting is counting
what we don’t want instead of what we want.
● You can also use complementary counting with probabilities
(as we will see on the next page).
● We can think of it as an equation like:
 Complementary Counting Basics
Some Basic Sample Problems
How many three-digit positive integers are NOT multiples of 7?
How many two digit positive integers exist that contain at least one 1, 2, or 3?
 Complementary Counting Advanced
● Complementary counting never solves a problem
completely it just gives an alternate (sometimes easier)
problem to solve.
● When complementary counting DON’T FORGET TO
SUBTRACT. Here is a terrible example of this happening at
MATHCOUNTS Nationals
 Complementary Counting Advanced
Some Harder Sample Problems
(2006 AMC 10A problem 21) How many four-digit positive integers have at least one digit that is a 2 or
3.

(2002 AIME I problem 1) Michigan uses 3 letters follow by 3 digits as its license-plate pattern (For
example ABC 123). Given that each pattern is equally likely, what is the probability that such a license
plate pattern will contain a at least one palindrome (a three-letter arrangement or a three-digit
arrangement that reads the same left-to-right as it does right-to-left)?
 Casework Basics
● Casework involves splitting a problem into several parts counting these parts up
individually and then adding all of them up together.
● Casework can be applied to many many different types of problems (even very difficult
ones). However, you have to be very tedious and careful when you use casework.
● A lot of times problems with a different intended solution can be solved using tedious
casework.
 Casework Basics
Some Basic practice problems
On the island of Mumble, the Mumblian alphabet has only 5 letters, and every word in the
Mumblian language has no more than 3 letters in it. How many words are possible?

How many positive integers satisfy the equation

 Casework Advanced
● Casework takes a lot of practice and patience.
● Although many problems can be solved with casework don’t try too hard to do it.
● If you do use casework to solve a problem make sure to DOUBLE CHECK your work
especially if it is complicated casework. One of the best ways to do this is count each
case in a different way.
 Casework Advanced
Some Harder practice problems
(2004 AIME II Problem 4) How many positive integers less than 10,000 have at most 2 different
digits?
(2024 AMC Problem 17) A chess king is said to attack all the squares one step away from it,
horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. For instance, a king on the center square of a 3 x 3 grid
attacks all 8 other squares, as shown below. Suppose a white king and a black king are placed on
different squares of a 3 x 3 grid so that they do not attack each other (in other words, not right
next to each other). In how many ways can this be done?
 Constructive Counting
● Constructive Counting focuses on how a certain item or number that satisfies
the requirements of the problem is constructed.
● Then you add up all of the total possibilities counted.
 Constructive Counting
Some Basic Constructive Counting Problems
● How many four-digit positive integers exist.
● How many lists of seven numbers are there such that each entry is between 2 and 9
inclusive and no two consecutive entries are equal?
 Basic Probability
● Probability is a number between 0 and 1 inclusive which tells what fraction of
the time a certain event occurs.
● A lot of times Probability can be seen as a fraction:
 Basic Probability
Two standard six-sided die are rolled. What is the probability that the product of
these two numbers is even?

(You can use a technique we’ve learned earlier in the lesson!)

 Advanced Probability
● Independent probability is when two probabilities do not affect each other.
● Dependent probability is when one probability occurring effects the other one occurring.
● Conditional probability is finding the probability of event A given that B occurred. The
formula for this is
● In English this means that the
probability that A happened given
that B happened is the probability
that both A and B happened over
the probability that B happened.
 Advanced Probability
(2014 AIME I Problem 2) An urn contains 4 green balls and 6 blue balls. A second urn contains 16
green balls and N blue balls. A single ball is drawn at random from each urn. The probability that both
balls are of the same color is 0.58. Find N.

(2021 AMC 10B Problem 20) In a particular game, each of 4 players rolls a standard 6-sided die. The
winner is the player who rolls the highest number. If there is a tie for the highest roll, those involved
in the tie will roll again and this process will continue until one player wins. Hugo is one of the players
in this game. What is the probability that Hugo's first roll was a 5, given that he won the game?
 Geometric Probability
● Geometric Probability translates a probability problem into a (usually very simple)
geometry problem.
● We usually accomplish this through graphing the problem in the cartesian plane.
● However, we can use length for one dimensional problems, area (cartesian coordinates) for
two dimensional problems, and volume for three dimensional problems.
 Geometric Probability
Sample Problem
(2004 AIME I problem 10) A circle of radius 1 is randomly placed in a 15-by-36 rectangle
ABCD so that the circle lies completely within the rectangle. What is the probability that
the circle will not touch diagonal AC?
 Expected Value
● Given an event with a variety of different possible outcomes, the expected value is
what one should expect to be the average outcome if the event were to be repeated
many times.
● This is basically just the average of all outcomes.
● Linearity of expectation says that for any random variables X and Y that:
 Expected
Value
Practice problems
(Aops) Three balls labeled “1”, “2”, and “3” are in a bin. The balls are randomly drawn one at a time, without
replacement. For each time that the number on the ball matches the order in which it is drawn (1 on the first
draw, 2 on the second draw, or 3 on the third draw), you win a dollar. What are your expected winnings?

(1996 AIME Problem 12) For each permutation of the integers ,

what is the expected value of

(HMMT 2006) At a nursery, 2006 babies sit in a circle. Suddenly, each baby randomly pokes either the
baby to its left or to its right. What is the expected value of the number of unpoked babies?
 Combinations and Pathwalking
● A combination is called n choose and defined as

● This can be described as the number of ways to walk a path with n total steps and
and r in a certain direction.
 Pascal’s triangle
● Pascal’s triangle is a triangle formed by adding the two numbers above it
● It contains many different properties.
● Pascal’s triangle also leads to the binomial theorem.
 Pascal’s triangle
Given find the sum of coefficients and the value of the term.

(2007 AIME II Problem 13) A triangular array of squares has one square in the first row, two in the second,
and in general, k squares in the kth row for 1 ≤ k ≤ 11. With the exception of the bottom row, each square
rests on two squares in the row immediately below (illustrated in the given diagram). In each square of the
eleventh row, a 0 or a 1 is placed. Numbers are then placed into the other squares, with the entry for each
square being the sum of the entries in the two squares below it. For how many initial distributions of 0's and
1's in the bottom row is the number in the top square a multiple of 3?
 Stars and Bars
● Stars and bars is a technique in combinatorics.
● It is used to solve problems of the form: how many ways can one distribute k
distinguishable objects into n distinguishable bins.
 Stars and Bars
(2018 AMC 10A Problem 11) When 7 fair standard 6-sided dice are thrown, the probability
that the sum of the numbers on the top faces is 10 can be written as

where n is a positive integer. What is n?

(2020 AMC 10B Problem 25) Let D(n) denote the number of ways of writing the positive
integer n as a product

where k ≥ 1, the are integers strictly greater than 1, and the order in which the factors are
listed matters (that is, two representations that differ only in the order of the factors are
counted as distinct). For example, the number 6 can be written as 6, 2*3, and 3*2, so D(6) =
3. What is D(96)?
 Review Problems
(2009 AMC 10A Problem 22) Two cubical dice each have removable numbers 1 through 6. The twelve numbers on the two dice
are removed, put into a bag, then drawn one at a time and randomly reattached to the faces of the cubes, one number to each
face. The dice are then rolled and the numbers on the two top faces are added. What is the probability that the sum is 7?

(2010 AMC 10B Problem 23) The entries in a 3x3 array include all the digits from 1 through 9, arranged so that the entries in
every row and column are in increasing order. How many such arrays are there?

(2003 AMC 10A Problem 21) Pat is to select six cookies from a tray containing only chocolate chip, oatmeal, and peanut butter
cookies. There are at least six of each of these three kinds of cookies on the tray. How many different assortments of six
cookies can be selected?

(2017 AIME II Problem 9) A special deck of cards contains 49 cards, each labeled with a number from 1 to 7 and colored with
one of seven colors. Each number-color combination appears on exactly one card. Sharon will select a set of eight cards from
the deck at random. Given that she gets at least one card of each color and at least one card with each number, what is the
probability that Sharon can discard one of her cards and still have at least one card of each color and at least one card with
each number?

(2010 AIME I Problem 4) Jackie and Phil have two fair coins and a third coin that comes up heads with probability 4/7. Jackie
flips the three coins, and then Phil flips the three coins. What is the probability that Jackie gets the same number of heads as
Phil.