2018 AIME II Problem 8

Attempt Problem 8 of the 2018 AIME II below, then check your answer against the professionally curated solution from LIVE by Po-Shen Loh. You can also try the full timed exam, view all 2018 AIME II solutions, or check the answer key.

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8.

A frog is positioned at the origin in the coordinate plane. From the point (x,y),(x, y), the frog can jump to any of the points (x+1,y),(x + 1, y), (x+2,y),(x + 2, y), (x,y+1),(x, y + 1), or (x,y+2).(x, y + 2). Find the number of distinct sequences of jumps in which the frog begins at (0,0)(0, 0) and ends at (4,4).(4, 4).

Answer: 556
Concepts:partitions and compositionsmultiset permutationscasework
Difficulty rating: 2920
Small Hint:

The rightward jumps are +1+1s and +2+2s summing to 4,4, so as a multiset they are {1,1,1,1},\{1,1,1,1\}, {1,1,2},\{1,1,2\}, or {2,2},\{2,2\}, and likewise for the upward jumps

Big Hint:

For each pair of multisets, the number of ways to order all the jumps is a multinomial coefficient; add up the nine cases

Solution:

The horizontal jumps are steps of 11 or 22 summing to 4,4, so as a multiset they are {1,1,1,1},\{1,1,1,1\}, {1,1,2},\{1,1,2\}, or {2,2},\{2,2\}, and the same holds for the vertical jumps. For any choice of the two multisets, every ordering of all the jumps is a valid sequence, and the number of orderings is the multinomial coefficient of the combined multiset.

The nine cases give (84)=70,7!4!2!=105,6!4!2!=15, \begin{aligned} &\binom{8}{4} = 70, \\ &\quad \frac{7!}{4!\,2!} = 105, \\ &\quad \frac{6!}{4!\,2!} = 15, \end{aligned} 6!2!2!=180,5!2!2!=30,(42)=6. \begin{aligned} &\frac{6!}{2!\,2!} = 180, \\ &\quad \frac{5!}{2!\,2!} = 30, \\ &\quad \binom{4}{2} = 6. \end{aligned} The values 105,105, 15,15, and 3030 each occur twice.

The total is 70+2105+21570 + 2 \cdot 105 + 2 \cdot 15 +180+230+6+ 180 + 2 \cdot 30 + 6 =556.= 556.

Problem 7#7
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