AUSTRALIAN

INFORMATICS
COMPETITION
Thursday 19 May 2011

Junior Paper
Years 7 & 8
INSTRUCTIONS
• Do not open the competition paper until told to do so.
• Maintain silence at all times.
• Do not bring mobile phones into the room.
• You may use calculators and language dictionaries.
• You may NOT borrow equipment without a supervisor’s permission.
• There are 15 questions. Questions 1 – 6 are multiple-choice with five possible answers given.
Questions 7 – 15 require a three-digit answer. Attempt all questions. Penalties do not apply.
• You are allowed working time of one hour (60 minutes). There is no extra reading time.
• This is a competition not a test; do not expect to answer all questions.
• Diagrams are NOT drawn to scale. They are intended only as aids.
• The questions have been thoroughly checked. Each question stands as written. No further
explanation of questions can be provided.
• You must not leave your seat. If you have any other questions or problems, please raise your hand
and wait for a supervisor.
• If you wish to leave the room a supervisor must accompany you.
• Record all your answers on the answer sheet provided.
• Use B or 2B lead pencils only. Ball point and ink pen markings may not activate the optical scanner.
• Do not make any other marks on the answer sheet as these may make the sheet unreadable.
• If you make an error, use a plastic eraser to completely remove all lead marks and smudges.
• Check that the number of the answer you are filling in is the same as the number of the question
you are answering. This is particularly important if you decide to leave a question blank.
• To ensure the integrity of the competition and to identify outstanding students, the AMT reserves
the right to re-examine students before deciding whether to grant official status to their score.

© 2011 AMT Publishing amtt limited acn 083 950 341

Australian Informatics Competition 2011 (Junior) 1

Part A: Questions 1–6

Each question should be answered by a single choice from A to E.
Questions are worth 3 points each.

1. Zabs
On a distant planet, the dominant carnivore, the zab, is nearing extinction. The number of
zabs born in any year is one more than the (positive) difference between the number born
in the previous year and the number born in the year before that.
Examples: If 7 zabs were born last year and 5 the year before, 3 would be born this year.
If 7 zabs were born last year and 10 the year before, 4 would be born this year.
2 zabs were born in the year 2000 and 9 zabs were born in 2001. What is the first year
after 2000 when just 1 zab will be born?

(A) 2009 (B) 2011 (C) 2013 (D) 2015 (E) 2017

2. Bird Calls
Volunteer ornithologist Anna Clark has returned from a field
trip to the remote Simpson desert with a recording of calls of
the endangered whistling emu. At dawn, each bird calls once.
The call is one of

• a single low note (L)

• a high note followed by a low note (H L)

• a low note followed by a high note (L H).

Anna has analysed the recording and found it to consist of the following notes:
L H L L H H L L H L H L L H H L L L H H L H L L L H L
How many birds were there?

(A) 11 (B) 16 (C) 18 (D) 21 (E) 27

Australian Informatics Competition 2011 (Junior) 2

3. Wonder Fabric
The 30 designers are all impressed with the new wonder fabric, and each wants to take
back a sample for testing. There is one large piece of fabric that has to be cut into 30
samples. The machine takes several minutes to make each cut, and the designers are
waiting, so you want to make as few cuts as possible. The fabric cannot be folded, but the
machine can cut a stack of up to 5 pieces at a time.
What is the smallest number of cuts required to cut the fabric into 30 pieces?
(The pieces don’t have to be all the same size.)

(A) 6 (B) 7 (C) 8 (D) 9 (E) 10

4. Wandering Robot
The wandering robot is the latest innovation in military reconnaissance. Rather than go
directly to its target, which would make it predictable and therefore vulnerable, it makes
random moves in the general direction. The disadvantage is that it takes longer to reach
its target.
N

W E

A move is either to the north (N), east (E), south (S) or west (W).

One robot reached its target in the 22 moves E E N E N N W N E N E S E E E E E S S S W N. If

it had been direct, how many moves would it have taken?

(A) 8 (B) 10 (C) 12 (D) 13 (E) 14

5. Slow Aphids
Aphids reproduce by cloning. They breed very, very fast and are the bane of gardeners.
The Genetically Modified Aphid Company has produced a strain they call ‘Slow Aphids’.
Slow Aphids can clone themselves at most once per day. Moreover, on any one day either
all of the Slow Aphids clone, or only one Slow Aphid clones.
What is the shortest time in which a single Slow Aphid on a plant could reproduce to
exactly 99 Slow Aphids on the plant?

(A) 9 days (B) 11 days (C) 12 days (D) 14 days (E) 15 days
Australian Informatics Competition 2011 (Junior) 3

6. Prospecting
A miscalculation whilst prospecting in the Great Sandy Desert has left you far from your
base camp and short of water. You need 1 litre of water per km, and you only have 3 litres
of water with you. Moreover, water is in short supply at your base camp, and you would
like to arrive with as much water as possible.
The map below is 8 km × 8 km. The numbers show the location and capacities of the
water holes, and the dotted lines show the trails made by the desert penguins.

You 4 9

2 2 3

4 3

1 1 2

1 4 1

2 4

1 2 1

7 3 4 Camp

It is too sandy to leave the penguin trails, and you do not have the energy to walk more
than 16 km.
What is the greatest volume of water that you can bring back to camp?

(A) 2 litres (B) 3 litres (C) 4 litres (D) 5 litres (E) 6 litres
Australian Informatics Competition 2011 (Junior) 4

Part B: Questions 7–15

Each question should be answered by a number in the range 0–999.
Questions are worth 2 points each.

7–9. Aircraft Baggage

When loading an aircraft, bags in excess of 20 kg (kilograms) are directed to a single
conveyor which branches to dual weighing scales. When a bag leaves one of the scales, it
is replaced by the next bag on the belt.

bags bags

Aircraft baggage is best loaded with the heaviest items to the rear of the plane. However,
the bags are loaded directly from the conveyor belt, and cannot be rearranged whilst
loading. For example, if three bags were placed on the conveyor belt, the first 2 kg in
excess, the second 1 kg in excess and the third 3 kg in excess, then leaving the scales in
the order 2 kg in excess, 3 kg in excess, 1 kg in excess is the best that can be done.
In each of the questions below, the numbers represent the excess weights of the bags as
they arrive at the weighing scales (leftmost number first, rightmost number last). Your
answer will be a 3-digit number, giving the excess weights of 3 specified bags as they
leave the scales.
For instance, in question 7, if you believe that the 3rd , 4th and 5th bags to leave the scales
had excess weights of 5, 3 and 6 kg, your answer would be 536.

7. Excess weights of bags arriving at the scales:

4 5 6 3 5 4 2 3 1
Excess weights of the 3rd , 4th and 5th bags to leave the scales.

8. Excess weights of bags arriving at the scales:

6 8 7 9 5 7 4 6 3 4 6
Excess weights of the 4th , 8th and 9th bags to leave the scales.

9. Excess weights of bags arriving at the scales:

7 9 8 6 7 6 5 6 9 5 4
Excess weights of the 3rd , 7th and 9th bags to leave the scales.
Australian Informatics Competition 2011 (Junior) 5

10–12. Selection Sort

The Selection Sort algorithm is a simple, though usually inefficient, method of sorting a
list. The algorithm works as follows:

1. Find the maximum value in the list.

2. Swap it with the value in the last position.

3. Repeat the steps above with the remainder of the list.

Each of the following two examples shows an initial list and three passes of the Selection
Sort algorithm.

1. B D A C → B C A D → B A C D → A B C D

2. B A D C → B A C D → B A C D → A B C D

Note that in the first example 3 swaps were required. But in the second example only 2
swaps were required as the C was already in position at the second pass.
For each of the following lists, how many swaps are necessary when the list is sorted
using Selection Sort?

10. 6 2 1 5 4 3

11. 4 0 1 2 3
9 5 6 7 8
14 10 11 12 13
19 15 16 17 18
24 20 21 22 23

12. 4 3 2 1 0 9 8 7 6 5
14 13 12 11 10 19 18 17 16 15
24 23 22 21 20 29 28 27 26 25
...
94 93 92 91 90 99 98 97 96 95
Australian Informatics Competition 2011 (Junior) 6

13–15. Gullies
You are several kilometres downstream from your car. There is a good track on both
sides of the river, but there are several gullies that will slow you down. You would like to
minimise the amount of time you spend crossing the river and gullies.
In the map below, the time it takes to cross each gully is shown, and it takes you 2 minutes
to cross the river. You can reduce the amount of time you spend crossing the river and
gullies to 5 minutes by crossing the river twice as shown.

1 3
2

You
Car

For each of the following maps, what is the shortest amount of time that you could take
crossing the river and gullies?

13. River crossing takes 2 minutes.

1 3 2 3 1
2

You

Car

3 3
2 1
2 2

14. River crossing takes 1 minute.

2 2 1 1 3
2 1
2
1

You
Car

2 1 2 2
1 1
2
Australian Informatics Competition 2011 (Junior) 7

15. River crossing takes 2 minutes.

1 2
3 3 3 2
4 4
3

You

Car

3
4
2 3
4 2 2 2
 2011 AIC Answers
Question Junior
1 C
2 B
3 C
4 B
5 A
6 B
7 454
8 644
9 765
10 3
11 20
12 40
13 13
14 11
15 21
 Junior Paper

A ustralian
M athematics
T rust