IMO 2009 #0ivv

IMO 2009Hard

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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.

Sequences and Series

Problem

Suppose that $s_1, s_2, s_3, \dots$ is a strictly increasing sequence of positive integers such that the subsequences $s_{s_1}, s_{s_2}, s_{s_3}, \dots$ and $s_{s_{1+1}}, s_{s_{2+1}}, s_{s_{3+1}}, \dots$ are both arithmetic progressions. Prove that the sequence $s_1, s_2, s_3, \dots$ is itself an arithmetic progression.

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