Tuesday 24 March 2015

Junior
Years 7 & 8
(Australian school years)

Name:

INSTRUCTIONS
• Do not open the CAT paper until told to do so.
• Maintain silence at all times.
• Do not bring mobile phones into the room.
• You may use calculators and printed 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 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 CAT and to identify outstanding students, the AMT reserves
the right to re-examine students before deciding whether to grant official status to their score.
© 2015 AMT Publishing amtt limited acn 083 950 341
Computational and Algorithmic Thinking 2015 (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. Secret
Wilma has a secret.
• On day 1: Wilma tells the secret to all her friends.
• On the following days: all people who heard the secret on the day before will tell
the secret to any of their friends who do not know it.
Wilma’s network of friends is shown below. The dots are people and a line means that
two people are friends.

How many days does it take before everyone knows the secret? (Include day 1.)

(A) 2 (B) 3 (C) 4 (D) 5 (E) 6

2. Pyramid
You start collecting letters at the letter W at the top of the pyramid, and go down one
level at each step. You can only take a letter that is on a lower diagonal from the letter
you come from. In how many different ways can you create the word WOMBAT?
W

O O

M M M

B B X B

A X A A A

T T T T T T

(A) 8 (B) 12 (C) 16 (D) 20 (E) 24

Computational and Algorithmic Thinking 2015 (Junior) 2

3. Ariadne’s Maze
Theseus is deep in the Cretan Labyrinth and has to pass through Ariadne’s Maze. The
enchantment on the maze requires Theseus to pick up the piece of obsidian in the first
chamber. Then in each subsequent chamber he must swap it with the next obsidian if
that one is heavier.

1 9 21 7 15

17 19 10 20 8

3 18 23 22 5

14 25 4 13 2

24 6 16 12 11

The number in each chamber represents the weight of the obsidian in it. Theseus wants
to walk as little as possible in the maze, so will only walk to the right or down on the
map. He also wants to carry as little weight as possible when he leaves the maze.
What is the least weight he can leave with if he only walks right or down?

(A) 16 (B) 17 (C) 18 (D) 19 (E) 20

4. Disco Lights
A DJ has a circle of lights that flash either blue or white. Each light is thus between
exactly two other lights. He wants to write a program to give a dashing sequence,
changing every second, and tries the following rule:

At each change, a light turns (or remains) blue if it is between a white and a blue
light, and turns (or remains) white if it is between two white or two blue lights.
W
If his starting pattern is
B

how many seconds will it take until the next time the lights display the starting pattern?

(A) 2 (B) 3 (C) 4 (D) 5 (E) 6

Computational and Algorithmic Thinking 2015 (Junior) 3

5. Bug in the Wind

When the wind blows for a day, a bug either stays still or S N
moves one unit of distance in the direction of the wind. S S
A W E
For example, if the bug was at A and the wind was blow-
S
ing from the south, the bug could end up at any of the
W
positions marked S, or stay at A. And if it was at B and B
the wind was blowing from the west, it could end up at W
either of the positions marked W or stay at B.
In the diagram below, the bug starts in the position labelled A. In how many possible
positions could it be after the wind blows for two days from the east then two days from
the north?

A
N

W E

(A) 18 (B) 19 (C) 20 (D) 21 (E) 22

6. Four Dispensers
There are four digit-dispenser chutes below. When you choose a digit from the bottom
of one of the chutes, the remaining digits in that chute drop to the bottom. The first digit
you choose forms the first digit of a new number. You then choose a second digit from
the bottom of one of the chutes, providing the second digit of the new number. This
process is repeated until all the chutes are empty. Your aim is to choose the digits so
that you get the largest possible 12-digit number.

9 7 6 7

7 9 8 4

3 4 6 5

What will be the last three digits of the number you obtain?

(A) 686 (B) 679 (C) 796 (D) 477 (E) 379
Computational and Algorithmic Thinking 2015 (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. Bomb Bots

Bomb Bots are robots that are programmed to walk across fields, avoiding land mines.
They follow set paths, shown below by the grid lines. On these grids lines they can
move left, right, up or down only. They are programmed to move at most two steps in
any direction before changing direction. For instance they could move up, right, right,
but not up, up, up. In addition, they cannot travel over swampy ground.
Each of the fields below is of size 4 steps up/down and 16 steps left/right. For each,
what is the least number of steps a Bomb Bot will take to get from A to B?

7.
A
swamp
swamp
swamp

B
8.
A

swamp

swamp

B
9.
A
swamp
swamp

swamp swamp

B
Computational and Algorithmic Thinking 2015 (Junior) 5

10–12. Routes
Judith’s daily run takes her through a garden. There are several paths through the garden,
going from top left to bottom right. She always runs the shortest distance, but likes
variety.
For each of the gardens below, how many different routes could Judith take?

10.

11.

12.
Computational and Algorithmic Thinking 2015 (Junior) 6

13–15. Twos
Alex’s favourite number is two. He plays a number game on his special Twos calculator.
The calculator has only two operation buttons:

+2 which adds 2 to the number shown

×2 which doubles the number shown.

Twos calculator

+2 ×2

He can press the buttons as many times as he likes, making the answer bigger each time.
He always tries to press as few buttons as possible to get to his preferred number. Start-
ing at 2, he could get to 8 by pressing ×2 + 2 + 2, but this would take more button
presses than ×2 ×2.
If the calculator starts at 2, find the fewest number of button presses to get to

13. 10

14. 100

15. 1000
 2015 CAT Answers
Question Junior

1 C

2 B

3 E

4 B

5 E

6 E

7 24

8 26

9 32

10 6

11 7

12 36

13 3

14 7

15 13
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