
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
<u>Round 1</u>**p1.** Suppose that gold satisfies the relation  $p = v + v^2$ , where  $p$  is the price and  $v$  is the volume. How many pieces of gold with volume  $1$  can be bought for the price of a piece with volume  $2$ ?**p2.** Find the smallest prime number with each digit greater or equal to  $8$ .**p3.** What fraction of regular hexagon  $ZUMING$  is covered by both quadrilateral  $ZUMI$  and quadrilateral $ MING$ ?


<u>Round 2</u>**p4.** The two smallest positive integers expressible as the sum of two (not necessarily positive) perfect cubes are  $1 = 1^3 +0^3$  and  $2 = 1^3 +1^3$ . Find the next smallest positive integer expressible in this form.**p5.** In how many ways can the numbers  $1, 2, 3,$  and  $4$  be written in a row such that no two adjacent numbers differ by exactly  $1$ ?**p6.** A real number is placed in each cell of a grid with  $3$  rows and  $4$  columns. The average of the numbers in each column is  $2016$ , and the average of the numbers in each row is a constant  $x$ . Compute  $x$ .


<u>Round 3</u>**p7.** Fardin is walking from his home to his oce at a speed of  $1$  meter per second, expecting to arrive exactly on time. When he is halfway there, he realizes that he forgot to bring his pocketwatch, so he runs back to his house at  $2$  meters per second. If he now decides to travel from his home to his office at  $x$  meters per second, find the minimum  $x$  that will allow him to be on time.**p8.** In triangle  $ABC$ , the angle bisector of  $\angle B$  intersects the perpendicular bisector of  $AB$  at point  $P$  on segment  $AC$ . Given that  $\angle C = 60^o$ , determine the measure of  $\angle CPB$  in degrees.**p9.** Katie colors each of the cells of a  $6\times 6$  grid either black or white. From top to bottom, the number of black squares in each row are  $1$ ,  $2$ ,  $3$ ,  $4$ ,  $5$ , and  $6$ , respectively. From left to right, the number of black squares in each column are  $6$ ,  $5$ ,  $4$ ,  $3$ ,  $2$ , and  $1$ , respectively. In how many ways could Katie have colored the grid?


<u>Round 4</u>**p10.** Lily stands at the origin of a number line. Each second, she either moves  $2$  units to the right or  $1$  unit to the left. At how many different places could she be after  $2016$  seconds?**p11.** There are  $125$  politicians standing in a row. Each either always tells the truth or always lies. Furthermore, each politician (except the leftmost politician) claims that at least half of the people to his left always lie. Find the number of politicians that always lie.**p12.** Two concentric circles with radii  $2$  and  $5$  are drawn on the plane. What is the side length of the largest square whose area is contained entirely by the region between the two circles?


PS. You should use hide for answers. Rounds 5-8 have been posted [here](https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c3h2934055p26256296). Collected [here](https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309).

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
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