Team Selection Test for the 61st International Mathematical Olympiad
United States of America
Day I
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Time limit: 4.5 hours. Each problem is worth 7 points. You may keep the exam problems,
but do not discuss them with anyone until Monday, December 16 at noon Eastern time.
IMO TST 1. Choose positive integers b1 , b2 , . . . satisfying
b1 b2 b3 b4
1= 2
> 2 > 2 > 2 > ···
1 2 3 4
and let r denote the largest real number satisfying nbn2 ≥ r for all positive integers n.
What are the possible values of r across all possible choices of the sequence (bn )?
IMO TST 2. Two circles Γ1 and Γ2 have common external tangents `1 and `2 meeting
at T . Suppose `1 touches Γ1 at A and `2 touches Γ2 at B. A circle Ω through A and B
intersects Γ1 again at C and Γ2 again at D, such that quadrilateral ABCD is convex.
Suppose lines AC and BD meet at point X, while lines AD and BC meet at point Y .
Show that T , X, Y are collinear.
IMO TST 3. Let α ≥ 1 be a real number. Hephaestus and Poseidon play a turn-based
game on an infinite grid of unit squares. Before the game starts, Poseidon chooses a finite
number of cells to be flooded. Hephaestus is building a levee, which is a subset of unit
edges of the grid (called walls) forming a connected, non-self-intersecting path or loop∗ .
The game then begins with Hephaestus moving first. On each of Hephaestus’s turns, he
adds one or more walls to the levee, as long as the total length of the levee is at most
αn after his nth turn. On each of Poseidon’s turns, every cell which is adjacent to an
already flooded cell and with no wall between them becomes flooded as well.
Hephaestus wins if the levee forms a closed loop such that all flooded cells are contained
in the interior of the loop — hence stopping the flood and saving the world. For which α
can Hephaestus guarantee victory in a finite number of turns no matter how Poseidon
chooses the initial cells to flood?
∗
More formally, there must exist lattice points A0 , A1 , . . . , Ak , pairwise distinct except possibly
A0 = Ak , such that the set of walls is exactly {A0 A1 , A1 A2 , . . . , Ak−1 Ak }. Once a wall is built it
cannot be destroyed; in particular, if the levee is a closed loop (i.e. A0 = Ak ) then Hephaestus cannot
add more walls. Since each wall has length 1, the length of the levee is k.
1
Team Selection Test for the 61st International Mathematical Olympiad
United States of America
Day II
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Time limit: 4.5 hours. Each problem is worth 7 points. You may keep the exam problems,
but do not discuss them with anyone until Monday, January 27 at noon Eastern time.
IMO TST 4. For a finite simple∗ graph G, we define G0 to be the graph on the same
vertex set as G, where for any two vertices u 6= v, the pair {u, v} is an edge of G0 if and
only if u and v have a common neighbor in G.
Prove that if G is a finite simple graph which is isomorphic to (G0 )0 , then G is also
isomorphic to G0 .
IMO TST 5. Find all integers n ≥ 2 for which there exists an integer m and a
polynomial P (x) with integer coefficients satisfying the following three conditions:
• m > 1 and gcd(m, n) = 1;
• the numbers P (0), P 2 (0), . . . , P m−1 (0) are not divisible by n; and
• P m (0) is divisible by n.
Here P k means P applied k times, so P 1 (0) = P (0), P 2 (0) = P (P (0)), etc.
IMO TST 6. Let P1 P2 · · · P100 be a cyclic 100-gon, and let Pi = Pi+100 for all i. Define
Qi as the intersection of diagonals Pi−2 Pi+1 and Pi−1 Pi+2 for all integers i.
Suppose there exists a point P satisfying P Pi ⊥ Pi−1 Pi+1 for all integers i. Prove that
the points Q1 , Q2 , . . . , Q100 are concyclic.
∗
A finite simple graph G = (V, E) is a finite set V of vertices, together with a set E of edges, where
each edge in E is a set of two distinct vertices of V . If v is a vertex of G, the neighbors of v are the
vertices u for which {u, v} ∈ E. Two graphs G1 = (V1 , E1 ) and G2 = (V2 , E2 ) are isomorphic if there
exists a bijection f : V1 → V2 such that {u, v} ∈ E1 if and only if {f (u), f (v)} ∈ E2 .
