Being in grade 5, Mrinalini and Sharanyaa, have developed keen interest in Mathematics, such that they work with the students of Grade 4 and 5 from the School, Swapnopuron Siksha Niketan (SSN), Sundarbans, West Bengal, India. Hence, they sit with the kids from the rural Bengal online, share their Mathematical ideas with them in Bengali and conduct Math Circles, under the guidance of coordinators from SSN and Cheenta.
Mrinalini and Sharanyaa Biswas are twin sisters, who joined Cheenta's Math Olympiad Program in October, 2020 to explore and enhance their love for Mathematics. Besides doing so, they showed their interest to discuss their Mathematical ideas with the rural kids, when Cheenta announced its Math Circles initiative. They were the youngest amongst others, who showed their interests.
Their faculty, Mrs. Namrata Dutta affirmed that they had the ability to lead kids in the Math Circles discussion as she believed that they had great leadership and logical thinking abilities.
In the Math Circles, they often share and discuss problem sets curated by themselves. Try to solve some problems curated by them:
P1. Anya and Borya play such a game. First, Anya writes a natural number on the board, and then writes Borya’s number on the same board. If the sum turns out to be odd, then Anya will win, and if it is even, then Borya. Can one of them always win, regardless of the actions of his opponent?
P2. Meena has less cats than Ridha who has more dogs than Lata. Lata has more cats than Ridha, and more dogs than Meena. Meena has more dogs than Ridha. Which of the following statements are true?
A. Lata has the least number of pets.
B. Meena has least cats than Ridha.
C. Lata has the least number of dogs.
D. Ridha has the least number of dogs.
P3. How many different 5-bead chains can you make by coloring two out of five beads and leaving the other three beads white?
P4. Five friends Ann, Bob, Cal, Dean and Eva shook hands with each other. Each person shook hands with every other person once. How many handshakes occurred?
P5. Dr. Ashani Dasgupta wants to have some fruits. He saw there are 1 apple, 1 orange, 1 banana, 1 pineapple, 1 mango in fridge. He wants to have exactly 2 fruits but doesn't want to start with apple. How many choices he has?
A. 14
B. 19
C.16
D. 10
E. 20
Hope you enjoyed the problems.
The efforts that Mrinalini and Sharanyaa take to share beautiful Mathematics with the other kids is inspiring. We wish their passion for Mathematics keeps growing and they keep spreading their knowledge like this forever.
