The CENTRE for EDUCATION

in MATHEMATICS and COMPUTING

[Link]

The CENTRE for MATHEMATICS,

SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY
EDUCATION in AFRICA
[Link]

The UNIVERSITY of NAIROBI

[Link]

Kenya Mathematical
Olympiad
Challenge Round: Junior level
(Grade 9 and Form 2)
Thursday 13 March 2025

Time: 60 minutes
The use of calculators is prohibited.
Instructions
1. Do not open the Contest booklet until you are told to do so.
2. You may use rulers, compasses and paper for rough work.
3. Be sure that you understand the coding system for your answer sheet. If you are not sure,
ask your teacher to clarify it.
4. On your answer sheet, print and bubble your name, print and bubble the 7-digit school
index number that your teacher gives you, print your school name and county, bubble your
gender, and bubble the level of the contest that you are writing. Completely shade each
circle that you are bubbling, and fully erase any shading that you wish to remove.
5. This is a multiple-choice contest. Each question is followed by five possible answers marked
A, B, C, D, and E. Only one of these is correct. After making your choice, bubble the
corresponding circle on the answer sheet.
6. Scoring: Each correct answer is worth 5 in Part A, 6 in Part B, and 8 in Part C.
There is no penalty for an incorrect answer.
Each unanswered question is worth 2, to a maximum of 10 unanswered questions.
7. Diagrams are not drawn to scale. They are intended as aids only.
8. When your supervisor tells you to begin, you will have sixty (60) minutes of working time.
 Scoring: There is no penalty for an incorrect answer.
Each unanswered question is worth 2, to a maximum of 10 unanswered questions.

Part A: Each correct answer is worth 5.

200 + 10
1. What is the value of ?
20 + 10
(A) 2 (B) 10 (C) 1 (D) 11 (E) 7
2. When x = 3, the value of x(x − 1)(x − 2)(x − 3)(x − 4) is
(A) 6 (B) −6 (C) 0 (D) 24 (E) −24
3. Six balls, numbered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, are placed in a hat. Each ball is equally likely
to be chosen. If one ball is chosen, what is the probability that the number on the
selected ball is a prime number?
(A) 61 (B) 31 (C) 12 (D) 23 (E) 56
4. Karen has just been chosen the new “Math Idol”. A total of 1 480 000 votes were
cast and Karen received 83% of them. How many people voted for her?
(A) 830 000 (B) 1 228 400 (C) 1 100 000 (D) 251 600 (E) 1 783 132
5. In the diagram, the measure of ∠ACB is
A
(A) 57◦ (B) 37◦ (C) 47◦
(D) 60◦ (E) 17◦ 93o

130o
D B C
6. The value of 41 + 32 − 23 + 14 is
(A) 4 (B) 8 (C) 6 (D) 5 (E) 9
7. A glass filled with water has a mass of 1000 g. When half of the water is removed
from the glass, the mass of the glass and the remaining water is 700 g. What is the
mass of the empty glass?
(A) 600 g (B) 500 g (C) 350 g (D) 400 g (E) 300 g
8. In the diagram, the rectangular solid and the cube have
equal volumes. The length of each edge of the cube is
(A) 2 (B) 4 (C) 8
(D) 16 (E) 32
4
8
2

9. A bamboo plant grows at a constant rate of 105 cm per day. On March 1st at noon
it was 2 m tall. Approximately how tall was it on March 8th at noon?
(A) 10.40 (B) 8.30 m (C) 3.05 m (D) 7.35 m (E) 9.35 m
10. An unusual die has the numbers 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, and 8 on its six faces. Two of these dice
are rolled. The two numbers on the top faces are added. How many different sums
are possible?
(A) 6 (B) 7 (C) 8 (D) 9 (E) 10
Part B: Each correct answer is worth 6.
√
11. If x is a positive integer less than 100, how many values of x make 1+2+3+4+x
an integer?
(A) 6 (B) 7 (C) 8 (D) 9 (E) 10

12. A student may pay KSh 150 for a single bus ticket or KSh 575 for a package of 5
tickets. If a student requires 40 tickets, how much does she save by buying all of the
tickets in packages of 5 rather than buying 40 single tickets?
(A) KSh 5425 (B) KSh 3400 (C) KSh 1400 (D) KSh 825 (E) KSh 425

13. The value of 0.1 + 0.12 + 0.123 is

(A) 0.343 (B) 0.355 (C) 0.35 (D) 0.355446 (E) 0.355445

a b x−1 2
14. The symbol equals ad − bc. If = 9, the value of x is
c d 3 −5
(A) −4 (B) −3 (C) −2 (D) 2 (E) 4

15. In the sequence 32, 8, , , x, each term after the second is the average of the
two terms immediately before it. The value of x is
(A) 17 (B) 20 (C) 44 (D) 24 (E) 14

16. In a bin at the Nui Grocery, the ratio of the number of apples to the number of
oranges is 1 : 4, and the ratio of the number of oranges to the number of lemons is
5 : 2. What is the ratio of the number of apples to the number of lemons?
(A) 1 : 2 (B) 4 : 5 (C) 5 : 8 (D) 20 : 8 (E) 2 : 1

17. The digits 1, 2, 5, 6, and 9 are all used to form five-digit positive integers that are even
and in which no digit is repeated. The difference between the largest and smallest of
these numbers is
(A) 83 916 (B) 79 524 (C) 83 952 (D) 79 236 (E) 83 016

18. Eight unit cubes are used to form a larger 2 by 2 by 2

cube. The six faces of this larger cube are then painted
red. When the paint is dry, the larger cube is taken apart.
What fraction of the total surface area of the unit cubes
is red?
1 2 1
(A) 6 (B) 3 (C) 2
1 1
(D) 4 (E) 3

19. Fifty students were surveyed about their participation in hockey and baseball. The
results of the survey were:
33 students played football 24 students played basketball
8 students played neither football nor basketball
How many of the students surveyed played both football and basketball?
(A) 1 (B) 7 (C) 9 (D) 15 (E) 16
20. A “slackrope walker” is much like a tightrope walker
except that the rope on which he performs is not pulled
tight. Paul, a slackrope walker, has a rope tied to two
15 m high poles which are 14 m apart. When he is
standing on the rope 5 m away from one of the poles,

Paul
15
he is 3 m above the ground. How long is the rope?
(A) 28 m (B) 30 m (C) 27 m 5
(D) 26 m (E) 29 m 3
14

Part C: Each correct answer is worth 8.

21. A wheel with radius 1 m is rolled in a straight line through one complete revolution
on a flat horizontal surface. How far did the centre of the wheel travel horizontally
from its starting location?
(A) 4π m (B) 2 m (C) π m (D) 1 m (E) 2π m

1 25
22. If p, q and r are positive integers and p + = , then q equals
1 19
q+
r
(A) 1 (B) 2 (C) 3 (D) 4 (E) 5

23. In Yacleyland, the unit of money used is called the Yacley. There are only two
denominations of paper money: the 17 Yacley bill and the 5 Yacley bill. How many
different combinations of these bills total 453 Yacley?
(A) 3 (B) 4 (C) 5 (D) 6 (E) 7

24. Harry the Hamster is put in a maze, and he starts at point S

S. The paths are such that Harry can move forward only
in the direction of the arrows. At any junction, he is
equally likely to choose any of the forward paths. What
is the probability that Harry ends up at B?
2 13 1
(A) 3 (B) 18 (C) 3
1 11
(D) 4 (E) 18

A B C D

25. A positive integer is called a perfect power if it can be written in the form ab , where
a and b are positive integers with b ≥ 2. For example, 32 and 125 are perfect powers
because 32 = 25 and 125 = 53 .
The increasing sequence
2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, . . .
consists of all positive integers which are not perfect powers. The sum of the squares
of the digits of the 1000th number in this sequence is
(A) 42 (B) 26 (C) 33 (D) 18 (E) 21