This article contains my solutions to the free response section of the Maths

Admissions Test specimen paper a posted on the University of Oxford Mathematics Institute
website. I have attempted the questions allocated for applicants in Mathematics and
Computer Science.

i. The first step is to perform polynomial division on cubic (1) by the factor 1.

1 1 1 cos sin cos sin + cos + sin sin cos

1 cos sin cos sin
1 cos sin cos sin 0

The division gives us

cubic in (1)
= 2 (cos +sin ) + sin cos .
1
It follows that
cubic in (1) = ( 1)( 2 (cos +sin ) + sin cos ) .
We can rewrite the above equation using the sum and product rule for factoring.
cubic in (1) = ( 1)( cos )( sin ) .
It can now be easily seen that (1) has the specified roots.
ii. Parts (ii) and (iii) are obvious and I will give answers without justification.

1 3
1, , .
2 2
iii.
5
0, , , .
2 4 4
 3
iv. The greatest possible difference is 2. This occurs at = and = . Cubic (1) is the
2
same for all of these values because
3 3
cos = sin and sin = cos .
2 2

i. We know that a quadratic has a stationary value at a point if and only if that point is the
vertex, and that quadratics have one stationary value. Rewriting () in vertex form yields
() = ( )2 2 + 3 .
We can now see that that () has a stationary point at ; therefore () will have a
stationary point in 0 < < 1 if and only if 0 < < 1.
ii. From the result obtained in (i), we know that if 1 then the stationary point of () is
at or to the right of 1. Because this is a quadratic with a positive 2 coefficient, () will
decrease as you approach the vertex. This means that will be at the right endpoint of the
interval, = 1. Substitution yields
= (1) = 4 2 .
iii. Using the same reasoning as (ii), we get
=3
iv. This is simply a graph of
3, <0
2 01 .
= { + 3,
4 2, >1

i.




ii. Suppose we have songs of length . We use rule II to obtain songs of length 2 + 2.
We then use rule III on the already constructed songs of length 2 + 2 to obtain another
songs of length 2 + 2, which results in a total of 2 songs of length 2 + 2. To prove the
second part of this question, we use induction.
Base case: For = 1, there are 2 = 2 songs of length 2+1 2 = 2. These songs are
and
The other two possible arrangements of s and s, which are and cannot be
constructed using the rules.
Inductive step: Suppose we have 2 songs of length 2+1 2. Using the result obtained in
the first part of this question, We know that there are 2 = 2(2 ) = 2+1 songs of length
2 + 2 = 2(2+1 ) + 2 = 2(+1)+1 2.
iii. Songs of the later period have lengths of all natural numbers or 0. To construct a song of
any whole number length , first iterate rule II until the length of the song is greater than . If
the song ends in a use rule IV to remove s until the song is length . If the song does not
end in a , use rule III, then remove s until the song is of length .
i. Alice can deduce she is wearing a white hat from the restriction that not all the hats are the
same colour. If she can see that the other two are wearing the same colour hat, she must be
wearing the other colour in order for the king to have not lied. The other two are therefore
wearing black hats.
ii. Because Alice cannot deduce what hat she is wearing, Charlie and Bob cannot both be
wearing the same coloured hat. Charlie is therefore wearing the colour hat Bob is not.
iii. If there were two or more black hats, at least one of the three would be able to see that the
other two are wearing black hats, and deduce that the colour of their own hat is white.
Because of this, at least two of the hats must be white.
iv. Alice is wearing a black hat, and Bob and Charlie are wearing white hats. All three
logicians now know that there must be at least two white hats. This implies that if a logician
sees a black hat, they know that they are the second white hat. Since Bob and Charlie know
what colour hat they are wearing, they must both see a black hat. This is only possible if
Alice is wearing a black hat. Since Alice cannot deduce the colour of her own hat, therefore
Bob and Charlie must both be wearing white hats.

After the creation of this document, the correctness of my answers was checked against the
solutions from the Oxford Mathematical Institute website. No edits were required to be made.