Problems

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In a class there are 50 children. Some of the children know all the letters except “h” and they miss this letter out when writing. The rest know all the letters except “c” which they also miss out. One day the teacher asked 10 of the pupils to write the word “cat”, 18 other pupils to write “hat” and the rest to write the word “chat”. The words “cat” and “hat” each ended up being written 15 times. How many of the pupils wrote their word correctly?

A hostess bakes a cake for some guests. Either 10 or 11 people can come to her house. What is the smallest number of pieces she needs to cut the cake into (in advance) so that it can be divided equally between 10 and 11 guests?

a) A square of area 6 contains three polygons, each of area 3. Prove that among them there are two polygons that have an overlap of area no less than 1.

b) A square of area 5 contains nine polygons of area 1. Prove that among them there are two polygons that have an overlap of area no less than \(\frac{1}{9}\).

In a corridor of length 100 m, 20 sections of red carpet are laid out. The combined length of the sections is 1000 m. What is the largest number there can be of distinct stretches of the corridor that are not covered by carpet, given that the sections of carpet are all the same width as the corridor?