Lehtinen M. The Nordic Mathematical Competition 1987-2006. Problems and Solutions

Rīga: Mācību grāmata, 2006. — 101 p.The Nordic Mathematical Competition (NMC) is a contest for secondary school students in solving mathematics problems on a quite high level of difficulty. NMC is organized in five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. This collection contains the problems and solutions of the first 20 NMC’s. The Nordic Mathematical Competition, NMC, has its roots in the International Mathematical Olympiads, IMO’s. In the 1986 IMO in Warsaw the leaders of the Nordic teams realized that one reason behind the rather mediocre if not bad success of their teams was lack of competition experience at a more difficult level. The countries did not possess a large-scale multistage national mathematical competition, and the existing competitions were rather easy. As a remedy to the situation, a cheap and easily manageable competition was proposed, and the NMC has been arranged every year since 1987.
A good competition problem often can be approached from a number of different angles. The solutions in this booklet are by no means the only possible ones. In some instances, alternative solutions are given, but anyone trying these problems should delight himself when finding another, correct solution.