IOQM 2025 COURSE

COMBINATORICS
75 PROBLEMS HANDOUT
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 1 WHAT IS COMBINATORICS
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with

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counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and
certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many
other areas of mathematics and has many applications ranging from

02
logic to statistical physics and from evolutionary biology to com-
puter science.

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2 WHY STARTING WITH COMBINATORICS
We are starting this ”IOQM 2025 COURSE” because of the follow-

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ing reasons:-
1. First-timers generally start with number theory which is somehow
related to Combinatorics and builds logic and the Math Olympiad
requires logical Capability Q
2. Second-timers always start with Number Theory and are gener-
ally weaker in Combinatorics
3. 10th graders are going to be in 11th soon and Combinatorics is
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an important topic in JEE too
4. YOU HAVE MANY REASONS NOT TO SOLVE THIS HAND-
OUT BUT CAN FIND A SINGLE REASON TO SOLVE IT ON
YOUR OWN IF YOU CAN YOU ARE A MATH LOVER:))
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THIS IS HANDOUT FOR MATH OLYMPIAD

COMBINATORICS:-
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ALL QUESTIONS ARE HAVING A GREAT CHANCE

TO COME IN IOQM 2025 AS ALL OF THEM ARE
FROM BEST OF THE MATH CONTESTS AND
/t.

BOOKS OF RENOWNED MATHEMATICIANS

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 SYLLABUS
Arrangements & Selections, Binomial theorem, PIE, PHP,

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Probability, Recurrence, Circular Arrangement, Counting
techniques, De arrangements, Game theory etc...

02
QUESTIONS
1. For {1, 2, 3, . . . , n} and each of its non-empty subsets a unique

_2
alternating sum is defined as follows. Arrange the numbers in
the subset in decreasing order and then, beginning with the
largest, alternately add and subtract successive numbers. For
example, the alternating sum for {1, 2, 3, 6, 9} is 9 − 6 + 3 −

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2 + 1 = 5 and for {5} it is simply 5. Find the sum of all such
alternating sums for n = 7.
2. The numbers 1447, 1005 and 1231 have something in common:
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each is a 4-digit number beginning with 1 that has exactly two
identical digits. How many such numbers are there?
3. Twenty-five of King Arthur’s knights are seated at their cus-
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tomary round table. Three of them are chosen - all choices
being equally likely - and are sent off to slay a troublesome
dragon. Let P be the probability that at least two of the three
had been sitting next to each other. If P is written as a fraction
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in the lowest terms, what is the numerator’s and denominator’s

sum?
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4. What is the largest 2-digit prime factor of the integer n = 200

100
?
5. A gardener plants three maple trees, four oaks, and five birch
trees in a row. He plants them in random order, each arrange-
/t.

ment being equally likely. Let mn

in lowest terms be the prob-
ability that no two birch trees are next to one another. Find
m + n.
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 6. Let A, B, C and D be the vertices of a regular tetrahedron,
each of whose edges measures 1 meter. A bug, starting from

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vertex A, observes the following rule: at each vertex it chooses
one of the three edges meeting at that vertex, each edge being
equally likely to be selected, and crawls along that edge to the
n

02
vertex at its opposite end. Let p = 729 be the probability that
the bug is at vertex A when it has crawled exactly 7 meters.
Find the value of n.
7. Suppose that 7 boys and 13 girls line up in a row. Let S

_2
be the number of places in the row where a boy and a girl
are standing next to each other. For example, for the row
GBBGGGBGBGGGBGBGGBGG we have that S = 12. The
average value of S (if all possible orders of these 20 people are

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considered) is closest to
(A) 9 (B) 10 (C) 11 (D) 12 (E) 13
P49 k 99

99


8. What is the value of theQsum S = k=0 (−1) 2k
= 0
−
99 99 99




2
+ 4 − · · · − 98 ?
(A) −250 (B) −249 (C) 0 (D) 249 (E) 250
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9. When a certain biased coin is flipped five times, the probability
of getting heads exactly once is not equal to 0 and is the same
as that of getting heads exactly twice. Let ji , in lowest terms,
be the probability that the coin comes up heads in exactly 3
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out of 5 flips. Find i + j.

10. Ten points are marked on a circle. How many distinct convex
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polygons of three or more sides can be drawn using some (or

all) of the ten points as vertices?
11. Initially an urn contains 100 white and 100 black marbles. Re-
/t.

peatedly 3 marbles are removed (at random) from the urn and
replaced with some marbles from a pile outside the urn as fol-
lows: 3 blacks are replaced with 1 black, or 2 blacks and 1
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white are replaced with a white and a black, or 1 black and 2

whites are replaced with 2 whites, or 3 whites are replaced with
a black and a white. Which of the following could be the con-
tents of the urn after repeated applications of this procedure?
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(A) 2 black (B) 2 white (C) 1 black (D) 1 black and 1 white
(E) 1 white
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 12. A drawer contains a mixture of red socks and blue socks, at
most 1991 in all. It so happens that, when two socks are se-

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lected randomly without replacement, there is a probability of
exactly 12 that both are red or both are blue. What is the
largest possible number of red socks in the drawer that is con-

02
sistent with this data?
13. How many even integers between 4000 and 7000 have four dif-
ferent digits

_2
14. Three numbers, a1 , a2 , a3 , are drawn randomly and without
replacement from the set {1, 2, 3, . . . , 1000}. Three other num-
bers, b1 , b2 , b3 , are then drawn randomly and without replace-
ment from the remaining set of 997 numbers. Let p be the

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probability that, after suitable rotation, a brick of dimensions
a1 × a2 × a3 can be enclosed in a box of dimension b1 × b2 × b3 ,
with the sides of the brick parallel to the sides of the box. If p
is written as a fraction in lowest terms, what is the sum of the
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numerator and denominator?
15. Let S be the set of points (a, b) in the coordinate plane, where
each of a and b may be −1, 0, or 1. How many distinct lines
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pass through at least two members of S?
(A) 8 (B) 20 (C) 24 (D) 27 (E) 36
16. Robert has 4 indistinguishable gold coins and 4 indistinguish-
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able silver coins. Each coin has an engraving of one face on one
side, but not on the other. He wants to stack the eight coins
on a table into a single stack so that no two adjacent coins
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are face to face. Find the number of possible distinguishable

arrangements of the 8 coins.
17. Two six-sided dice are constructed such that each face is equally
/t.

likely to show up when rolled. The numbers on the faces of one

of the dice are 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8. The numbers on the faces
of the other die are 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, and 4. Find the probability of
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rolling a sum of 9 with these two dice.

18. Let S be the set of points (a, b) in the coordinate plane, where
each of a and b may be −1, 0, or 1. How many distinct lines
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pass through at least two members of S?

(A) 8 (B) 20 (C) 24 (D) 27 (E) 36
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 19. Let S be the set of real numbers that can be represented as
repeating decimals of the form 0.abc where a, b, c are distinct

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digits. Find the sum of the elements of S.
20. How many non- empty subsets S of {1, 2, 3, . . . , 15} have the
following two properties?

02
(1) No two consecutive integers belong to S.
(2) If S contains k elements, then S contains no number less
than k.

_2
(A) 277 (B) 311 (C) 376 (D) 377 (E) 405
21. John has a pile of 63 blocks. On top of the pile is one block.
Below this block are two smaller blocks. Below each of these

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two blocks are two even smaller blocks. Below each of these
blocks are two still smaller blocks, and so on until the last row,
which contains 32 blocks. John removes blocks one at a time,
removing only blocks that currently have no blocks on top of
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them. Find the number of ways (order matters) in which John
can remove exactly seven blocks.
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22. Let m be the number of five-element subsets that can be chosen
from the set of the first 14 natural numbers so that at least two
of the five numbers are consecutive. Find the remainder when
m is divided by 1000
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23. Jackie and Phil have two fair coins and a third coin that comes
up heads with probability 74 . Jackie flips the three coins, and
then Phil flips the three coins. Let mn
be the probability that
m

Jackie gets the same number of heads as Phil, where m and n

are relatively prime positive integers. Find m + n.
24. Consider polynomials P (x) of degree at most 3, each of whose
/t.

coefficients is an element of {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}. How many

such polynomials satisfy P (−1) = −9?
(A) 110 (B) 143 (C) 165 (D) 220 (E) 286
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 25. A scanning code consists of a 7 × 7 grid of squares, with some
of its squares colored black and the rest colored white. There

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must be at least one square of each color in this grid of 49
squares. A scanning code is called symmetric if its look does
not change when the entire square is rotated by a multiple of
90◦ counterclockwise around its center, nor when it is reflected

02
across a line joining opposite corners or a line joining midpoints
of opposite sides. What is the total number of possible sym-
metric scanning codes?

_2
(A) 510 (B) 1022 (C) 8190 (D) 8192 (E) 65,534
26. How many sequences of 0s and 1s of length 19 are there that
begin with a 0, end with a 0, contain no two consecutive 0s,
and contain no three consecutive 1s?

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(A) 55 (B) 60 (C) 65 (D) 70 (E) 75
27. Frieda the frog begins a sequence of hops on a 3 × 3 grid of
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squares, moving one square on each hop and choosing at ran-
dom the direction of each hop-up, down, left, or right. She does
not hop diagonally. When the direction of a hop would take
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Frieda off the grid, she ”wraps around” and jumps to the oppo-
site edge. For example if Frieda begins in the center square and
makes two hops ”up”, the first hop would place her in the top
row middle square, and the second hop would cause Frieda to
jump to the opposite edge, landing in the bottom row middle
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square. Suppose Frieda starts from the center square, makes

at most four hops at random, and stops hopping if she lands
on a corner square. What is the probability that she reaches a
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corner square on one of the four hops?

9 5 3 25 13
(A) 16
(B) 8
(C) 4
(D) 32
(E) 16
/t.

28. A choir director must select a group of singers from among

his 6 tenors and 8 basses. The only requirements are that the
difference between the number of tenors and basses must be a
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multiple of 4, and the group must have at least one singer. Let
N be the number of different groups that could be selected.
What is the remainder when N is divided by 100?
(A) 47 (B) 48 (C) 83 (D) 95 (E) 96
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 29. A bug starts at a vertex of a grid made of equilateral triangles
of side length 1. At each step the bug moves in one of the

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6 possible directions along the grid lines randomly and inde-
pendently with equal probability. What is the probability that
after 5 moves the bug never will have been more than 1 unit

02
away from the starting position?
13 7 29 4 1
(A) 108
(B) 54
(C) 216
(D) 27
(E) 16

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

a randomly selected subset of 5 distinct integers chosen from

_2
the set {1, 2, 3, . . . , 30}? (For example the set {1, 17, 18, 19, 30}
has 2 pairs of consecutive integers.)
2 29 5 29
(A) 3
(B) 36
(C) 6
(D) 30
(E) 1

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31. How many strings of length 5 formed from the digits 0, 1, 2,
3, 4 are there such that for each j ∈ {1, 2, 3, 4}, at least j of
the digits are less than j? (For example, 02214 satisfies this
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condition because it contains at least 1 digit less than 1, at
least 2 digits less than 2, at least 3 digits less than 3, and at
least 4 digits less than 4. The string 23404 does not satisfy the
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condition because it does not contain at least 2 digits less than
2.)
(A) 500 (B) 625 (C) 1089 (D) 1199 (E) 1296
32. Find the number of subsets of {1, 2, 3, . . . , 10} that contain ex-
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actly one pair of consecutive integers. Examples of such subsets

are {1, 2, 5} and {1, 3, 6, 7, 10}.
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33. There is a collection of 25 indistinguishable white chips and

25 indistinguishable black chips. Find the number of ways to
place some of these chips in the 25 unit cells of a 5 × 5 grid
/t.

such that:
each cell contains at most one chip all chips in the same row
and all chips in the same column have the same colour any
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additional chip placed on the grid would violate one or more of

the previous two conditions.
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 34. Alice chooses a set A of positive integers. Then Bob lists all
finite nonempty sets B of positive integers with the property

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that the maximum element of B belongs to A. Bob’s list has
2024 sets. Find the sum of the elements of A.
35. Find the number of ways to place a digit in each cell of a 2x3

02
grid so that the sum of the two numbers formed by reading left
to right is 999, and the sum of the three numbers formed by
reading top to bottom is 99. The grid below is an example of
such an arrangement because 8+991 = 999 and 9+9+81 = 99.

_2
0 0 8
9 9 1

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36. When n standard six-sided dice are rolled, the product of the
numbers rolled can be any of 936 possible values. What is n?
(A) 11 (B) 6 (C) 8
Q (D) 10 (E) 9
37. Let K be the number of sequences A1 , A2 , . . . , An such that
n is a positive integer less than or equal to 10, each Ai is a
subset of {1, 2, 3, . . . , 10}, and Ai−1 is a subset of Ai for each i
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between 2 and n, inclusive. For example, {}, {5, 7}, {2, 5, 7},
{2, 5, 7}, {2, 5, 6, 7, 9} is one such sequence, with n = 5.What
is the remainder when K is divided by 10?
(A) 1 (B) 3 (C) 5 (D) 7 (E) 9
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38. Each vertex of a regular dodecagon (12-gon) is to be colored

either red or blue, and thus there are 212 possible colorings.
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Find the number of these colorings with the property that no

four vertices colored the same color are the four vertices of a
rectangle.
/t.

39. Find the number of collections of 16 distinct subsets of {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

with the property that for any two subsets X and Y in the col-
lection, X ∩ Y ̸= ∅(EmptySet/P hi).
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 40. Let N be the number of ways to place the integers 1 through
12 in the 12 cells of a 2 × 6 grid so that for any two cells sharing

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a side, the difference between the numbers in those cells is not
divisible by 3. One way to do this is shown below. Find the
number of positive integer divisors of N.

02
1 3 5 7 9 11
2 4 6 8 10 12

41. Alice knows that 3 red cards and 3 black cards will be revealed

_2
to her one at a time in random order. Before each card is
revealed, Alice must guess its color. If Alice plays optimally,
the expected number of cards she will guess correctly is m n
,
where m and n are relatively prime positive integers. Find

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m + n.
42. The Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, . . . starts with two
1s, and each term afterwards is the sum of its two predecessors.
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Which one of the ten digits is the last to appear in the units
position of a number in the Fibonacci sequence?
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43. Using the letters A, M , O, S, and U , we can form five-letter
”words”. If these ”words” are arranged in alphabetical order,
then the ”word” U SAM O occupies position
(A) 112 (B) 113 (C) 114 (D) 115 (E) 116
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44. Let the set S = {8, 5, 1, 13, 34, 3, 21, 2}. Susan makes a list as
follows: for each two-element subset of S, she writes on her
list the greater of the set’s two elements. Find the sum of the
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numbers on the list.

45. Pat is to select six cookies from a tray containing only chocolate
/t.

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?
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(A) 22 (B) 25 (C) 27 (D) 28 (E) 729

46. How many 15-letter arrangements of 5 A’s, 5 B’s, and 5 C’s
have no A’s in the first 5 letters, no B’s in the next 5 letters,
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and no C’s in the last 5 letters?

3
(A) 5k=0 k5 (B) 35 ·25 (C) 215 15!
(E) 315
P
(D) (5!) 3
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 47. How many positive cubes divide 3! · 5! · 7! ?
(A) 2 (B) 3 (C) 4 (D) 5 (E) 6

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48. Team A and team B play a series. The first team to win three
games wins the series. Before each game, each team is equally
likely to win each game, there are no ties, and the outcomes

02
of the individual games are independent. If it turns out that
team B won the second game and team A won the series, what
is the conditional probability that team B won the first game?

_2
1 1 1 1 2
(A) 5
(B) 4
(C) 3
(D) 2
(E) 3

49. How many four-digit positive integers have at least one digit
that is a 2 or a 3?

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(A) 2439 (B) 4096 (C) 4903 (D) 4904 (E) 5416
50. A bug starts at one vertex of a cube and moves along the edges
of the cube according to the following rule. At each vertex the
bug will choose to travel along one of the three edges emanat-
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ing from that vertex. Each edge has equal probability of being
chosen, and all choices are independent. What is the probabil-
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ity that after seven moves the bug will have visited every vertex
exactly once?
1 1 2 1 5
(A) 2187
(B) 729
(C) 243
(D) 81
(E) 243

51. A convex polygon has n sides and 740 diagonals. Then n equals
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(A) 30 (B) 40 (C) 50 (D) 60 (E) None of these

52. Among the 900 residents of Aimeville, there are 195 who own
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a diamond ring, 367 who own a set of golf clubs, and 562 who
own a garden spade. In addition, each of the 900 residents owns
a bag of candy hearts. There are 437 residents who own exactly
/t.

two of these things, and 234 residents who own exactly three
of these things. Find the number of residents of Aimeville who
own all four of these things.
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53. Five men and nine women stand equally spaced around a circle
in random order. The probability that every man stands dia-
metrically opposite a woman is m
n
, where m and n are relatively
prime positive integers. Find m + n.
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 54. Unconventional dice are to be designed such that the six faces
are marked with numbers from 1 to 6 with 1 and 2 appearing

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on opposite faces. Further, each face is colored either red or
yellow with opposite faces always of the same color. Two dice
are considered to have the same design if one of them can be

02
rotated to obtain a dice that has the same numbers and colors
on the corresponding faces as the other one. Find the number
of distinct dice that can be designed.
55. The sequence {an }n≥0 is defined by a0 = 1, a1 = −4, and

_2
an+2 = −4an+1 − 7an , for n ≥ 0. Find the number of positive
integer divisors of a250 − a49 a51 .
56. Consider a set of 16 points arranged in a 4 × 4 square grid

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formation. Prove that if any 7 of these points are coloured
blue, then there exists an isosceles right-angled triangle whose
vertices are all blue.
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57. The smallest positive integer that does not divide 1 × 2 × 3 ×
4 × 5 × 6 × 7 × 8 × 9 is:
58. Jason rolls three fair standard six-sided dice. Then he looks
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at the rolls and chooses a subset of the dice (possibly empty,
possibly all three dice) to reroll. After rerolling, he wins if and
only if the sum of the numbers face up on the three dice is ex-
actly 7. Jason always plays to optimize his chances of winning.
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What is the probability that he chooses to reroll exactly two of

the dice?
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59. How many ways are there to seat 6 people around the circle if
3 of them insist on staying together?(All people are distinct)
60. How many distinguishable towers consisting of 8 blocks can be
/t.

built with 2 red blocks, 4 pink blocks, and 2 yellow blocks?

61. A frog sitting at the point (1, 2) begins a sequence of jumps,
where each jump is parallel to one of the coordinate axes and
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has length 1, and the direction of each jump (up, down, right,
or left) is chosen independently at random. The sequence
ends when the frog reaches a side of the square with vertices
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(0, 0), (0, 4), (4, 4), and (4, 0). What is the probability that the
sequence of jumps ends on a vertical side of the square? .
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 62. Given n > 3 points in the plane such that no three of the
points are collinear. Does there exist a circle passing through

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(at least) 3 of the given points and not containing any other of
the n points in its interior?
63. Let n ⩾ 2 be an integer and let 1 < a1 ≤ a2 ≤ · · · ≤ an be n

02
real numbers such that a1 + a2 + · · · + an = 2n. Prove that

a1 a2 . . . an−1 + a1 a2 . . . an−2 + · · · + a1 a2 + a1 + 2 ⩽ a1 a2 . . . an .

_2
64. In a town of 351 adults, every adult owns a car, motorcycle, or
both. If 331 adults own cars and 45 adults own motorcycles,
how many of the car owners do not own a motorcycle?
(A) 20 (B) 25 (C) 45 (D) 306 (E) 351

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65. There are 20 students participating in an after-school program
offering classes in yoga, bridge, and painting. Each student
must take at least one of these three classes, but may take
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two or all three. There are 10 students taking yoga, 13 taking
bridge, and 9 taking painting. There are 9 students taking
at least two classes. How many students are taking all three
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classes?
(A) 1 (B) 2 (C) 3 (D) 4 (E) 5
66. How many sequences of 0s and 1s of length 19 are there that
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begin with a 0, end with a 0, contain no two consecutive 0s,

and contain no three consecutive 1s?
(A) 55 (B) 60 (C) 65 (D) 70 (E) 75
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67. Let T be the set of ordered triples (x, y, z), where x, y, z are
integers with 0 ≤ x, y, z ≤ 9. Players A and B play the follow-
ing game. Player A chooses a triple (x, y, z) in T , and Player B
/t.

has to discover A’s triple in as few moves as possible. A move

consists of the following: B gives A a triple (a, b, c) in T , and
A replies by giving B the number |x + y − a − b| + |y + z − b −
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c| + |z + x − c − a|. find the minimum number of moves that

B needs to be sure of determining A’s triple.
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 68. A game of solitaire is played with R red cards, W white cards,
and B blue cards. A player plays all the cards one at a time.

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With each play he accumulates a penalty. If he plays a blue
card, then he is charged a penalty which is the number of white
cards still in his hand. If he plays a white card, then he is

02
charged a penalty which is twice the number of red cards still
in his hand. If he plays a red card, then he is charged a penalty
which is 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

_2
player can amass and all the ways in which this minimum can
be achieved.
69. For all positive integers x, let

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
1
 if x = 1
x
f (x) = 10 if x is divisible by 10

x + 1 otherwise
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and define a sequence as follows: x1 = x and xn+1 = f (xn ) for
all positive integers n. Let d(x) be the smallest n such that
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xn = 1. (For example, d(100) = 3 and d(87) = 7.) Let m be
the number of positive integers x such that d(x) = 20. Find
the sum of the distinct prime factors of m.
70. A stromino is a 3×1 rectangle. Show that a 5×5 board divided
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into twenty-five 1×1 squares cannot be covered by 16 strominos

such that each stromino covers exactly three squares of the
board, and every square is covered by one or two strominos.
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(A stromino can be placed either horizontally or vertically on

the board.)
71. How many positive integers less than 10,000 have at most two
/t.

different digits?
72. There are 4 men: A, B, C and D. Each has a son. The four
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sons are asked to enter a dark room. Then A, B, C and D enter

the dark room, and each of them walks out with just one child.
If none of them comes out with his own son, in how many ways
can this happen?
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 73. For each positive integer n, let S(n) be the number of sequences
of length n consisting solely of the letters A and B, with no

X
more than three As in a row and no more than three Bs in a
row. What is the remainder when S(2015) is divided by 12?
(A) 0 (B) 4 (C) 6 (D) 8 (E) 10

02
74. Let n be a positive integer and let S be a set of 2n + 1 elements.
Let f be a function from the set of two-element subsets of S
to {0, . . . , 2n−1 − 1}. Assume that for any elements x, y, z of
S, one of f ({x, y}), f ({y, z}), f ({z, x}) is equal to the sum of

_2
the other two. Show that there exist a, b, c in S such that
f ({a, b}), f ({b, c}), f ({c, a}) are all equal to 0.
75. The number of four-digit odd numbers having digits 1, 2, 3, 4,

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each occuring exactly once, is?

CONGRATULATIONS YOU Q
HAVE SOLVED ALL 75
PROBLEM OF THIS
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HANDOUT! :)
e/
m
/t.
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