MOPSS

5 July 2025

Mathematics Olympiad
Problem Solving Sessions

MOPSS

Department of Mathematics
IISER Bhopal

[Link]

Suggested readings
• Evan Chen’s advice On reading solutions, available at [Link]
[Link]/2017/03/06/on-reading-solutions/.
• Evan Chen’s Advice for writing proofs/Remarks on English, available at
[Link]
• Notes on proofs by Evan Chen from OTIS Excerpts [Che25, Chapter 1].
• Tips for writing up solutions by Edward Barbeau, available at https:
//[Link]/barbeau/[Link].

• Evan Chen discusses why math olympiads are a valuable experience for
high schoolers in the post on Lessons from math olympiads, available at
[Link]
List of problems and examples
1.1 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Example (Bay Area MO 1999 P1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.5 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.6 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.7 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.8 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.9 Example (Infinitude of primes, by Saidak) . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.10 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.11 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.12 Exercise (Tournament of Towns, Spring 2019, Junior, O Level,
P4 by Boris Frenkin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.13 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.14 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.15 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.16 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.17 Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.18 Exercise (Tournament of Towns, Fall 2019, Junior, O Level,
P4 by Boris Frenkin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.19 Exercise (India RMO 2017a P2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.20 Example (China TST 1995 Day 1 P1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.21 Example (India RMO 1998 P2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.22 Example (India RMO 2023a P2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.23 Example (India RMO 2023b P1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

§1 Problems
Exercise 1.1. Determine if the product of some four consecutive integers can
be equal to the product of a few consecutive primes.

Walkthrough — The product of any four consecutive positive integers is a

multiple of 4.

Exercise 1.2. Suppose we are given a positive integer, and any of its digits is
equal to 0 or 6. Show that the given integer is not a perfect square.

Walkthrough —
(a) Show that the last two digits of a square cannot be 06 or 66.
(b) Conclude that the last two digits are equal to 00.

2
1 Problems Typos may be reported to jpsaha@[Link].

(c) Use this argument repeatedly.

Example 1.3 (Bay Area MO 1999 P1). Prove that among any 12 consecutive
positive integers, there is at least one which is smaller than the sum of its
proper divisors. (The proper divisors of a positive integer n are all positive
integers other than 1 and n which divide n. For example, the proper divisors
of 14 are 2 and 7.)

Walkthrough — 3, 4, . . . !

Remark. Note that

22 = 4,
26 = 64,
25 = 32,
225 = 33554432

holds. This shows that there are distinct powers of 2 whose last digits are equal,
and that there are distinct powers of 2 whose blocks of last two digits are the
same. This leads to the following questions.

Exercise 1.4. Are there two powers of 2 such that the blocks of their last
three digits are the same?

Walkthrough — Apply the pigeonhole principle to all powers of 2, considering

their last three digits.

Exercise 1.5. Are there two powers of 2 such that the blocks of their last
2025 digits are the same?
Exercise 1.6. Suppose we are given a positive integer. We interchange its
digits to form another integer. Show that these two integers leave the same
remainder when divided by 9.
Exercise 1.7. Note that 3, 5, 7 are three consecutive odd integers and all of
them are primes. How many such examples of three consecutive odd integers
are there such that all of them are primes?

Remark. Examples of three consecutive odd integers include

• 11, 13, 15,
• 25, 27, 29,

Some style files, prepared by Evan Chen, have been adapted here. 3
5 July 2025 [Link]

• 37, 39, 41.

Example 1.8. [FGI96, Problem 83, p. 72] Prove that if a prime number is
divided by 30, the remainder is a prime or 1.
Example 1.9 (Infinitude of primes, by Saidak). Let a1 , a2 , a3 , a4 , a5 , . . . be a
sequence of integers such that
a1 = 2,
a2 = a1 (a1 + 1),
a3 = a2 (a2 + 1),
a4 = a3 (a3 + 1),
a5 = a4 (a4 + 1),
a6 = a5 (a5 + 1)
etc. holds, that is, for any positive integer n,
an+1 = an (an + 1)
holds. Show that an has at least n distinct prime factors for any positive
integer n.

Walkthrough — Check it for first few values to n. Expect that the pattern will
continue! Try to figure out what more to do to see/get convinced/prove/estab-
lish that the pattern does continue.
This is important since the statement that every positive integer n is
smaller than 1000 is true for first few values of n! However, “the pattern”
does not continue in this case. The upshot is that observing a pattern does not
guarantee its validity all throughout.

Remark. This shows that the list of primes does not stop anywhere, that is,
there are infinitely many primes.

Exercise 1.10. Show that for any odd prime number p, the numerator of the
rational number
1 1 1 1
1 + + + + ··· +
2 3 4 p−1
is divisible by p.

Walkthrough — Let S denote the above sum. Consider 2S and arrange the
summands suitably.

Example 1.11. Among any four consecutive positive integers, one of them is
coprime to (that is, no common factor with) the remaining three.

4 The content posted here and at this blog by Evan Chen are quite useful.
1 Problems Typos may be reported to jpsaha@[Link].

Walkthrough — Show that among any four consecutive positive integers,

at least one of the odd integers is not divisible by 3. Consider the case when
this odd integer is equal to 1, and the case when it it greater than one. In the
second case, find a suitable prime divisor of this odd integer.

Exercise 1.12 (Tournament of Towns, Spring 2019, Junior, O Level, P4 by

Boris Frenkin). The product of two positive integers m and n is divisible by
their sum. Prove that m + n ≤ n2 .

Walkthrough — Note that if m + n divides mn, then m + n divides n(m +

n) − mn.

Exercise 1.13. Show that a perfect square leaves 0 or 1 as the remainder

upon division by 4.

Walkthrough — Consider the squares of 2n and 2n + 1.

Exercise 1.14. If an integer leaves a remainder of 3 upon division by 4, then

it cannot be expressed as a sum of two squares.

Walkthrough — Use the above Exercise.

Exercise 1.15. Is 20252025 divisible by 23? If not, what would be the remainder
when it is divided by 23?

Walkthrough — Check that 2025 ≡ 1 (mod 23).

Exercise 1.16. Determine the remainder to be obtained when 133133 is divided

by 13.
Exercise 1.17. No integer that leaves a remainder of 7 upon division by 8
can be expressed as a sum of three squares.

Walkthrough — Try to read the squares modulo 8.

Exercise 1.18 (Tournament of Towns, Fall 2019, Junior, O Level, P4 by

Boris Frenkin). There are given 1000 integers a1 , . . . , a1000 . Their squares
a21 , . . . , a21000 are written along the circumference of a circle. It so happened
that the sum of any 41 consecutive numbers on this circle is a multiple of 412 .
Is it necessarily true that every integer a1 , . . . , a1000 is a multiple of 41?

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5 July 2025 [Link]

Remark. Replace 1000 by 10 and 41 by 7, and try to work on the problem.

Exercise 1.19 (India RMO 2017a P2). Show that the sum of the cubes of
any seven consecutive integers cannot be expressed as the sum of the fourth
powers of two consecutive integers.

Walkthrough — Read it modulo !

Example 1.20 (China TST 1995 Day 1 P1). Find the smallest prime number p
that cannot be represented in the form |3a − 2b |, where a and b are non-negative
integers.

Walkthrough —
(a) Any prime smaller than 41 can be expressed as the absolute value of the
difference of a nonnegative power of 3 and a nonnegative power of 2.
(b) If 41 = 2b − 3a , then b ≥ 3 and hence 3a ≡ −1 mod 8, which is impossible.
(c) Assume that 41 = 3a − 2b . Considering congruence modulo 3, show that
b is an even positive integer. Reduce modulo 4 to show that a is even.
(d) Write a = 2x, b = 2y, and factorize 41.
(e) Conclude by obtaining a contradiction.

Example 1.21 (India RMO 1998 P2). Let n be a positive integer and
p1 , p2 , . . . , pn be n prime numbers all larger than 5 such that 6 divides p21 +
p22 + · · · + p2n . Prove that 6 divides n.

Walkthrough — Observe that any prime larger than 5 is congruent to ±1

modulo 6.

Example 1.22 (India RMO 2023a P2). Given a prime number p such that 2p
is equal to the sum of the squares of some four consecutive positive integers.
Prove that p − 7 is divisible by 36.

Walkthrough — Show that the sum of four consecutive squares is congruent to

6 modulo 8, and conclude that p ≡ 3 mod 4. Considering congruence conditions
modulo 3, prove that the smallest of the four consecutive numbers is a multiple
of 3. Deduce that the sum of the four consecutive squares is 5 modulo 9.

Example 1.23 (India RMO 2023b P1). Let N be the set of all positive integers
and
S = (a, b, c, d) ∈ N4 : a2 + b2 + c2 = d2 .


Find the largest positive integer m such that m divides abcd for all (a, b, c, d) ∈
S.

6 The content posted here and at this blog by Evan Chen are quite useful.
References Typos may be reported to jpsaha@[Link].

Walkthrough —
(a) Show that (1, 2, 2, 3) lies in S, and deduce that m divides 12.
(b) Let (a, b, c, d) be an element of S. Show that at least one of a, b, c, d is
divisible by 3, and at least one of them is even.
(c) Prove that if d is even, then at least one of a, b, c is even, and that if d is
odd, then at least two of a, b, c are even.
(d) Conclude that m is divisible by 2 · 2 · 3.

References
[Che25] Evan Chen. The OTIS Excerpts. Available at https : / / web .
[Link]/[Link]. 2025, pp. vi+289 (cited p. 1)
[FGI96] Dmitri Fomin, Sergey Genkin, and Ilia Itenberg. Mathematical
circles (Russian experience). Vol. 7. Mathematical World. Translated
from the Russian and with a foreword by Mark Saul. American
Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, 1996, pp. xii+272. isbn: 0-
8218-0430-8 (cited p. 4)

Some style files, prepared by Evan Chen, have been adapted here. 7