HMMT November #0jrh
HMMT NovemberHard
From module Proof Writing Basics
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Understand the scale
Scale
0.5: Easiest math competition problems, often solvable even for early middle school students without experience.
1: Problems strictly for beginners, often at a moderate middle school level.
1.5: Problems for stronger beginner students, on the level of the middling problems in most middle school contests.
2: For motivated beginners, harder questions from the previous categories.
2.5: More advanced beginner problems, hardest questions from previous categories.
3: Early intermediate problems that require more creative thinking.
3.5: Tougher early intermediate problems that consistently stretch into higher-level creative thinking or conceptual knowledge.
4: Intermediate-level problems.
4.5: Upper intermediate problems approaching the upper bound for non-invitational sprint math competitions.
5: More difficult AIME problems or simple proof-based Olympiad-style problems.
6: High-level AIME-styled questions or introductory Olympiad-level questions.
7: Tougher Olympiad-level questions, may require more technical knowledge.
8: High-level Olympiad-level questions.
9: Expert Olympiad-level questions.
9.5: The hardest problems appearing on Olympiads which the strongest students could reasonably solve.
10: Historically notorious problems, generally unsuitable for even very hard competitions because they are exceedingly tedious, long, and difficult.
Coloring schemes, extremal argumentsLogic
Problem
Problem:
Consider a grid of squares. Haruki fills each square in this grid with an integer between and , inclusive. The grid is called a super-sudoku if each of the following three conditions hold:
- Each column in the grid contains each of the numbers exactly once.
- Each row in the grid contains each of the numbers exactly once.
- Each subsquare in the grid contains each of the numbers exactly once.
How many possible super-sudoku grids are there?