TU/MATH
TEZPUR UNIVERSITY
Tutorial Sheet
MSIN305/EDMS305/MD425: Combinatorics
[All symbols used in this paper have their usual meaning unless otherwise stated ]
1. Find the number of ways of picking (a) a king and a queen, (b) a king or a queen, (c) a
king and a red card, and (d) a king or a red card from a deck of cards.
2. Find the number of ways in which r identical objects can be allocated to n locations such
that location i gets at least pi objects.
3. A variable name in the programming language BASIC is either a letter of the alphabet or
a letter followed by a digit. Find the number of distinct variable names in this language.
4. X is a set with nine elements. Find the number of (a) subsets of X, (b) subsets of
cardinality 3, and (c) unordered pairs in X.
5. Find the number of ways of seating 14 people such that 8 of them are around a round
table and the rest are on a bench.
6. Prove the identity C(3n, 3) = 3C(n, 3) + 6nC(n, 2) + n3 using a combinatorial argument.
7. Prove: C(n, 0) + C(n, 1) + C(n, 2) + · · · + C(n, n) = 2n .
8. There are 18 students in a class. Find the number of ways of partitioning the class into
(a) 4 groups of equal strength and a minority group, (b) 2 groups of 5 students, 1 group
of 4 students, and 2 groups of 2 students, and (c) 1 group of 7 students, 1 group of 6
students, and 1 group of 5 students.
9. Find the number of solutions of the linear equation a + b + c + d + e = 10 if (a) all the
variables are nonnegative integers, (b) all the variables are positive integers, and (c) all
the variables are positive integers and the variable a is odd.
10. Find the number of ways a mother can distribute 9 identical candy bars to her three
children so that each child gets at least 2 bars.
11. Find the number of solutions in nonnegative integers of the equation x1 +x2 +x3 +3x4 = 7.
12. Find the number of solutions in nonnegative integers of the (strict) inequality a + b + c +
d + e < 11. Solve it if a is at most 6.
13. Find the number of bytes that can be formed using exactly six zeros.
14. A mother bought 10 story books for her 3 children. The youngest gets 2 books and the
other two get 4 each. Find the number of ways she can pack them as gifts.
15. A linear algebra class consists of 10 mathematics majors and 12 computer science majors.
A team of 12 has to be selected from this class. Find the number of ways of selecting
2
a team if (a) the team has 6 from each discipline, and (b) the team has a majority of
computer science majors.
16. Find the coefficient of a2 b3 c3 d4 in the expansion of (a) (a + b + c + d)12 and (b) (2a–3b +
2c–d)12 .
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