The material is designed to be unfamiliar to almost all high school students; this is simply our way of making sure everyone is on an equal footing. Despite initial appearances, many problems have a simple, short, correct answer. See some questions and answers from past exams below.
Answer (no peeking until after you try!)
Example 2
A woman and her husband attended a party with four other couples. As
is normal at parties, handshaking took place. Of course, no one shook their
own hand or the hand of the person they came with. And not everyone shook
everyone else's hand. But when the woman asked the other (9) people present
how many different people's hands they had shaken they all gave a different
answer. Question (this is NOT a trick!): How many different people's hands
did the woman's husband shake?
Answer (hey! we said no peeking until after you try!)
Example 3
A person starts walking up a narrow mountain path at 6:00 a.m. The person walks at
different speeds, stopping to eat, sometimes going back a few steps to look
at a flower, but never leaving the path. The person eventually arrives at the top
at 10:00 p.m. the same day, camps out over night and starts down the same
path at 6:00 a.m. the next day. After stopping to eat and so forth the person arrives
at the bottom at 10:00 p.m.
True or False? There is some point on the path that the person occupied at exactly the same time on the two different days. Explain your answer.
Answer (did you peek?)
We bet your brain is getting warmed up now....