Problems

Age
Difficulty
Found: 2008

A wide variety of questions in mathematics starts with the question ’Is it possible...?’. In such problems you would either present an example, in case the described situation is possible, or rigorously prove that the situation is impossible, with the help of counterexample or by any other means. Sometimes the border between what seems should be possible and impossible is not immediately obvious, therefore you have to be cautious and verify that your example (or counterexample) satisfies the conditions stated in the problem. When you are asked the question whether something is possible or not and you suspect it is actually possible, it is always useful to ask more questions to gather additional information to narrow the possible answers. You can ask for example "How is it possible"? Or "\(\bf Which\) properties should the correct construction satisfy"?

Jane wrote a number on the whiteboard. Then, she looked at it and she noticed it lacks her favourite digit: 5. So she wrote 5 at the end of it. She then realized the new number is larger than the original one by exactly 1661. What is the number written on the board?

Replace letters with digits to maximize the expression: \[NO + MORE + MATH\] (same letters stand for identical digits and different letters stand for different digits.)

In a parallelogram \(ABCD\), point \(E\) belongs to the side \(CD\) and point \(F\) belongs to the side \(BC\). Show that the total red area is the same as the total blue area:

A circle was inscribed in a square, and another square was inscribed in the circle. Which area is larger, the blue or the orange one?

In a square, the midpoints of its sides were marked and some segments were drawn. There is another square formed in the centre. Find its area, if the side of the square has length \(10\).

In a parallelogram \(ABCD\), point \(E\) belongs to the side \(AB\), point \(F\) belongs to the side \(CD\) and point \(G\) belongs to the side \(AD\). What is more, the marked red segments \(AE\) and \(CF\) have equal lengths. Prove that the total grey area is equal to the total black area.