Name of the Organization : Computer Olympiad South Africa
Examination Name : Talent Search Olympiad 2018
Announcement : Talent Search Olympiad Elite Question Paper
Category : Grade 12+
Year : 2017
Type : Past Papers
Website : http://olympiad.org.za/talent-search/past-papers/pen-and-paper/
Download Question Paper :
2017 TS Q Elite : https://www.southafricain.com/uploads/9849-2017ELITE.pdf
2016 TS Q Elite : https://www.southafricain.com/uploads/9849-2016Elite.pdf
2015 TS Q Elite : https://www.southafricain.com/uploads/9849-2015Elite.pdf
Computer Talent Search Elite Question Paper
** To download the 2017 Elite (Grade 12 and higher) paper, for 2017 TS Q Elite
Related : Computer Talent Search Senior Grades 10 & 11 Question Paper 2017 : www.southafricain.com/9843.html
** The Talent Search is the South African version of the Bebras Contest which attracts more than a million participants in the rest of the world each year.
** The Talent Search is an online test, but for those schools with inadequate connectivity a pen-and-paper version is available which does not require computers.
Instructions
** If you are NOT in grade 12 or above, please report that you have the wrong paper.
** Only when the teacher says “START”, may you begin.
1. Write your personal details and your answers on the answer sheet provided.
2. You will have 45 minutes to complete the 15 tasks.
3. You may answer the questions in any order, but it is important to place the answer in the correct line on the answer sheet.
4. Leave the tasks you find difficult for later.
The mark allocation is as follows :
A section: +6 marks for every correct answer.
B section: +7 marks for every correct answer.
C section: +7 marks for every correct answer.
** If you do not answer a question or answer correctly, you get 0 (zero) for that task.
** The maximum mark is 100.
** Wait for the teacher to say “START”.
Sample Questions
A1 Secret Messages :
Agents Boris and Bertha communicate using secret messages. Boris wants to send Bertha the secret message:
MEETBILLYBEAVERAT6
He writes each character in a 4 column grid from left to right and row by row starting from the top. He puts an X in any unused spaces. The result is shown below.
Question : What message does Bertha send back** Write the letter of your answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
A: OKWHERETOMEET!
B: OKIWILLBETHERE!
C: WILLYOUBETHERETOO?
D: OKIWILLMEETHIM!
A2 Magic Potions :
Betaro Beaver has discovered five new magic potions:
** one makes ears longer
** another makes teeth longer
** another makes whiskers curly
** another turns the nose white
** the last one turns eyes white.
Betaro put each magic potion into a separate beaker. He put pure water into another beaker, so there are six beakers in total. The beakers are labeled A to F. The problem is, he forgot to record which beaker contains which magic potion!
Question: Which beaker contains pure water? Write down the letter of your answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
A3 Segway :
Jan has a special vehicle that looks like a Segway. He moves it by pressing two buttons: a button on the left, and a button on the right.
When he presses a button, the wheel on that side of the vehicle rotates: If both buttons are pushed at the same time, both wheels rotate and the vehicle moves forward. If he pushes a single button, only one wheel rotates and the vehicle turns.
Question : The vehicle is in a large rectangular room. The vehicle kept going until it hit one of the walls. At the start the vehicle was facing towards the upper wall. Towards which wall was the vehicle facing at the end of the journey? Write down the letter of your answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
A: upper wall
B: lower wall
C: left wall
D: right wall
A4 Rafting :
Beavers build rafts. For river traffic control, all rafts should be registered. This means that each raft should have a license plate with unique text. The text is made up of letters and digits as shown in the illustration below. The licence must start with the letter B and end with the digit 0 or 1.
Question: Which one of the license plates cannot be registered? Write down the letter of your answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
A: BB0001
B: BBB011
C: BB0100
D: BR00A0
E: BSA001
F: BE0S01
A5 Marbles :
Beaver Emil is trying a new puzzle on his computer. He has to arrange a stack of marbles in a cylinder. Rules: The marbles must be either white or blue. There must be at least three marbles in the cylinder at the start. Aim: To produce a stack that never has less than 3 marbles in the cylinder when the GO button is repeatedly pressed. What happens when GO button is pressed once: Each click of the GO button lets the two lowest marbles drop out. Then one of two things happen depending on the colour of the first marble to drop out:
Question: Which of the following starting stacks that consist of only three marbles, will produce a never ending game. Write the letter of your answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
B1 Triangles :
A Learner wants to create a mosaic with identical, triangle-shaped tiles. He starts with one tile. He rotates it 90 degrees clockwise and then adds tiles on each side of the triangle-shaped tile, as shown in the picture below. Then he rotates the whole shape 90 degrees clockwise again and adds tiles to the sides as before.
Question: What will the final shape of the mosaics be after step 3? Write the letter of your answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
B2 Bike Paths :
Cleveria is a beaver biker. She explores the one-way paths that pass through the villages in her district. Each village has a village stone labelled with a single letter. All the paths have a distance and a direction. The distance and direction are given by the flags.
Question: What is the meaning of the numbers she has left under the stones? Write down the letter of your answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
A: The shortest distance going through the least number of villages
B: The shortest distance from village A to this village
C: The shortest distance to this village by taking a left turn at crossings if possible
D: The shortest distance to this village by taking a right turn at crossings if possible
B3 Scanner Code :
Two scanners encode an image by translating its pixels into a special code. The code lists the number of all consecutive pixels of the same colour (black or white), followed by the number of all consecutive pixels of the other colour, and so on. Both scanners start from the top left corner, and go from left to right, and row by row. The two scanners use different methods at the end of a row: Scanner A processes the pixels row by row and restarts the encoding on the next row. Scanner B processes the pixels row by row but does not restart the encoding on the next row.
Question:Which of the following pictures will have the same code no matter which scanner is used? Write the letter of the correct answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
B4 Cards and Cones :
Inés has a pack of cards, each card has a number written on it from 1 to 9. The pack contains many of the same cards. She places three cones in front of her:
Question: What cards are visible when the cones are lifted? Write the letter of the correct answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.
A: X = 5 Y = 6 Z = 3
B: X = 6 Y = 3 Z = 5
C: X = 5 Y = 3 Z = 3
D: X = 5 Y = 1 Z = 5
B5 Recursive :
Painting Ingrid and her friends have volunteered to help paint a floor that is 16m long by 16m wide. The instructions are printed on numbered sheets that refer to the other sheets by their number. Each sheet has a scale printed at the bottom. Here is an example floor plan from a previous project. It draws a beaver. Ingrid is given the plan for the new project:
Question: What does the painted result look like? Write down the letter of your answer in the appropriate block on your answer sheet.