Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 5.3 AIME, harder Prove it Argentina

Consider the following arrangement of 25 points.
• • • • •
Gastón must choose 4 of these points.
• • • • •
The chosen points must be the vertices of a square.
• • • • •
In how many ways can this be done?
• • • • •

Solution

The following figures show how many squares of each type Gastón can choose.
Figure 1
(a) 1 square
Figure 2
(b) 16 squares
Figure 3
(c) 9 squares
Figure 4
(d) 4 squares
Figure 5
(e) 9 squares
Figure 6
(f) 4 squares
Figure 7
(g) 4 squares
Figure 8
(h) 2 squares
Figure 9
(i) 1 square
The total number of squares is 50.

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