Math Competition Handout Archive
This page contains pdf files with my handouts and other information. My first student graduation was in Srping 2013: after that I started recycling my material. I do think that my new version is better than the old one.
Spring 2016 (I had fewer lessson than usual, due to snow days and my colds)
- Optical tricks of Walter Wicks — June 6, 2016
- Test — May 23, 2016
- The Thue-Morse Sequence — May 16, 2016
- The Cantor Set — May 9, 2016
- Dividing Inheritance — May 2, 2016
- Envy-Free — April 25, 2016
- How to Cut a Cake — April 11, 2016
- Polynomials — April 4, 2016
- Quadratics — March 14, 2016
- Radicals — March 7, 2016
- Triangle Points — February 29, 2016
- Pythagorean Theorem — February 22, 2016
- PIE — January 11, 2016
- Magic Square — January 4, 2016
Fall 2015
- Star Search and Random Walk puzzles from the MIT mystery hunt — December 14, 2015
- Pigeonhole Principle — December 7, 2015
- Continuity — November 30, 2015
- Scaling arguments — November 23, 2015
- Public Key Encryption — November 16, 2015
- Fermat's Little Theorem — November 9, 2015
- Chinese Remainder Theorem — November 2, 2015
- Euclid's algorithm — October 26, 2015
- One-Way Functions — October 19, 2015
- One-Time Pads — October 5, 2015
- Classical Cryptography — September 28, 2015
Spring 2015 (Many lessons were cancelled because of me being sick and snow days)
- Quiz solutions. Physical puzzles, secret boxes. — June 8, 2015
- Quiz — June 1, 2015
- Dancing Tangles (no homework) — May 18, 2015
- Invariants III — May 11, 2015
- Invariants II — May 4, 2015
- Invariants — April 27, 2015
- Coins II — April 13, 2015
- Coins — April 6, 2015
- Calendar II — March 30, 2015
- Calendar — March 23, 2015
- Working with square roots — March 16, 2015
- Expressions — March 9, 2015
- Symmetric Polynomials — March 2, 2015
- Metasolving AMC and How to Boost Your Guessing Accuracy During Tests
— February 23, 2015
- AMC Practice — January 26, 2015
Fall 2014
- Studied the game of bulls and cows and had a Surprise Sudoku puzzle for homework — December 15, 2014
- Palindromic Polynomials — December 1, 2014
- Solve Cross Something-Or-Others puzzle from the MIT Mystery Hunt
- Geometry — November 24, 2014
- Rotations — November 17, 2014
- Reflections — November 10, 2014
- Translations — November 3, 2014
- Common Knowledge — October 27, 2014
- Induction — October 6, 2014
- Parity — September 29, 2014
- Remainders — September 22, 2014
Spring 2014
- Test and Test Solutions — Jun 2, 2014
- Miscellaneous Probability — May 19, 2014
- The Simpson's Paradox — May 12, 2014
- Conditional Probability — May 5, 2014
- Probability — Apr 28, 2014
- Game Theory 2 — Apr 14, 2014
- Game Theory — Apr 7, 2014
- Proofs Without Words Homework and Proofs Without Words Handout— Mar 31, 2014.
- Fibonacci Numbers — Mar 24, 2014
- Sequences — Mar 17, 2014
- Hat Puzzles — Mar 10, 2014
- Combinatorics — Mar 3, 2014
- Review — Feb 24, 2014
- AMC Strategy. Venn Diagrams. IE Principle. — Feb 3, 2014
- AMC Strategy. Percentages
— Jan 27, 2014
- AMC Preparation. Mental Arithmetic
— Jan 13, 2014
- AMC Preparation. Guessing — Jan 6, 2014
Fall 2013
Spring 2013
- Test Solution. Games. — June 10, 2013
- Test — June 3, 2013
- Small World — May 20, 2013
- Networks — May 13, 2013
- Euler Formula — May 6, 2013
- Planar Graphs — April 22, 2013
- Graph Theory. Basics — Apr 8, 2013
- Floating Point — April 1, 2013
- Integers in Computers — Mar 25, 2013
- Sorting Algorithms — Mar 18, 2013
Fall 2012
Spring 2012
Fall 2011
- Sum of Divisors — Dec 12, 2011
- Extra Problems, VII. HMMT 2009 Algebra — Dec 12, 2011
- Number of Divisors — Dec 5, 2011
- Extra Problems, VI — Nov 28, 2011
- Fancy Number Systems — Nov 14, 2011
- Extra Problems, V — Nov 14, 2011
- Bases — Oct 31, 2011
- Extra Problems, IV — Oct 31, 2011
- Recursions — Oct 17, 2011
- Combinatorial Identities — Oct 3, 2011
- Extra Problems, III — Oct 3, 2011
- Catalan Numbers — Sep 26, 2011
- Extra Problems, II — Sep 26, 2011
- Combinatorics Review — Sep 19, 2011
- Extra Problems, I — Sep 19, 2011
Spring 2011
- The Thue-Morse Sequence — June 13, 2011
- The Cantor Set — Jun 6, 2011
- Fair Division Review — May 2, 2011
- Fair Division — Apr 25, 2011
- How to Cut a Cake — Apr 11, 2011
- Algebra Review — Apr 4, 2011
- Polynomials — Mar 28, 2011
- Quadratics — Mar 21, 2011
- Radicals — Mar 7, 2011
- Triangle Points — Feb 28, 2011
- Pythagorean Triples — Feb 14, 2011
- Pythagorean Theorem — Jan 31, 2011
Fall 2010
- Principle of Inclusion and Exclusion — Dec 13, 2010
- Magic Square — Dec 6, 2010
- Pigeonhole Principle — Nov 29, 2010
- Continuity — Nov 22, 2010
- Scaling Arguments — Nov 15, 2010
- Public Key Encryption — Nov 8, 2010
- Fermat's Little Theorem — Nov 1, 2010
- Euclid's Algorithm — Oct 25, 2010
- Chinese Remainder Theorem — Oct 18, 2010
- One-Way Functions — Oct 4, 2010
- One-Time Pads — Sep 27, 2010
- Classical Cryptography — Sep 20, 2010
Spring 2010
- Remainders Modulo 9 — May 10, 2010
- Invariants 3 — May 3, 2010
- Invariants 2 — April 26, 2010
- Figure out my card trick — April 12, 2010
- Invariants — April 5, 2010
- Calendar and Coins Review 2 — March 29, 2010
- Calendar and Coins Review — March 22, 2010
- Had a Doomsday quiz, Coins — March 15, 2010
- Finished the Doomsday algorithm, Calendar — March 8, 2010
- Summer Math Camps, 2006 USA/Canada Math Camp Qualifying quiz — March 1, 2010
- Doomsday algorithm for 2010, AIME I 2000 — February 22, 2010
- No homework — February 8, 2010
- AMC 10A 2005, Problems 1-23 — February 1, 2010
- How to Boost Your Guessing Accuracy During Tests, AMC 10A 2003 Problems 14-22 — January 25, 2010
- Should You Check Your Answers During Tests?, AMC 10A 2003 Problems 1-8, AMC 10B 2004 Problems 1-9 — January 11, 2010
- AMC Practice — January 4, 2010
- Bulls and Cows Quiz — January 4, 2010
Fall 2009
- Play Mastermind and Bulls and Cows — December 21, 2009
- Square Roots — December 14, 2009
- Alegebraic Expressions — December 7, 2009
- Symmetric Polynomials — November 30, 2009
- Palindromic Polynomials — November 23, 2009
- Rotations 2 — November 16, 2009
- Rotations — November 9, 2009
- Solve Cross Something-Or-Others puzzle from the MIT Mystery Hunt
- Sign up for HMNT (optional)
- Reflections — October 19, 2009 (Homework)
- Prepare for the Massachusetts Olympiad
- Think more about translations problems we didn't discuss
- Reflections — October 5, 2009 (Class discussion)
- Translations — September 29, 2009 (Homework)
- Find different transformations in the tesselations of M.C. Escher
- Translations — September 29, 2009 (Class discussion)
Fall 2009, 8 graders. Sometimes 8 graders get and easier homework. Some of it is a simpler version of Spring 2008:
Spring 2009
- Think about the marriage problem and find how the assumptions in this problem are different from the real life
- Math Induction — May 4, 2009 (Homework)
- Math Induction — April 27, 2009 (Class discussion)
- Solve the linguistics puzzles — April 13, 2009
- Remainders — April 6, 2009 (Homework)
- Homework — Figure out my magic trick
- Remainders — March 30, 2009 (Class discussion)
- Fibonacci Numbers — March 23, 2009 (Homework)
- Fibonacci Numbers — March 23, 2009 (Class discussion)
- Try sample problems from Math Kangaroo competition.
- Try 2004 AIME I.
- Solve the game of Nim.
- Play with three doors at Math Alive, you can find explanations on the previous page.
- Probability 2 — February 9, 2009 (Homework)
- Probability 2 — February 9, 2009 (Class discussion)
- The qualifying quiz for the USA/Canada MathCamp is now up.
- Probability — February 2, 2009 (Homework)
- Probability — February 2, 2009 (Class discussion)
- Computational Linguistics Olympiad, February 4, 2009 NACLO
- Sequences — January 26, 2009 (Homework)
- Sequences — January 26, 2009 (Class discussion)
- Combinatorics 2 — January 12, 2009 (Homework)
- Combinatorics 2 — January 12, 2009 (Class discussion)
- Try to solve the Functions puzzle from the 2008 MIT mystery hunt. This is not an individual homework, build teams and use help from family and friends, but do not check the answer online — January 5, 2009 (Homework)
- Practice calculating the last card in the game of set
- You can play 4D tic tac toe online.
Fall 2008
- The board for 4D tic tac toe — December 15, 2008 (Vacation Homework)
- Combinatorics — December 8, 2008 (Homework)
- Combinatorics — December 8, 2008 (Class discussion)
- Build a magic square from the set cards, also a magic cube and a hypercube.
- Review Set Theory — December 1, 2008 (Homework)
- The registration for Math Kangaroo is open.
- The registration for 2009 HMMT tournament ends December 1.
- Review Logic — November 24, 2008 (Homework)
- Played a game of set — Daily Set Puzzle November 24, 2008 (Class discussion)
- MIT 2008 SPLASH program runs on November 22 and 23, 2008
- Set Theory-2 — November 17, 2008 (Homework)
- Set Theory-2 — November 17, 2008 (Class discussion)
- Set Theory — November 10, 2008 (Homework)
- Set Theory — November 10, 2008 (Class discussion)
- The registration for MIT 2008 SPLASH program starts November 5, 2008
- AMSA sent two teams to local 2008 HMMT tournament, November 8, 2008.
- Word Problems — November 3, 2008 (Homework)
- Word Problems — November 3, 2008 (Class discussion)
- Logic and Arithmetic — October 27, 2008 (Homework)
- Logic and Arithmetic — October 27, 2008 (Class discussion)
- Logic-2 — October 20, 2008 (Homework)
- Logic-2 — October 20, 2008 (Class discussion)
- Logic — October 6, 2008 (Homework)
- Logic — October 6, 2008 (Class discussion)
- General Thinking — September 29, 2008
Spring 2008:
Last revised February 2011