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2017 Beaver Computing Challenge
(Grade 5 & 6)

Questions

Part A

Bird House

Story

A parent takes their child to the store to buy a bird house. The child says "I would like a bird house with two windows and a heart decoration."

Four houses. House 1 has has two hearts and one window. House 2 has two windows and one star. House 3 has two windows and one heart. House 4 has one heart, one star, and one window.

Question

Which of the bird houses matches this description?

  1. House 1
  2. House 2
  3. House 3
  4. House 4

Risk

Story

Darren’s computer is connected to the Internet but does not have any antivirus or firewall software. None of the accounts on his computer are protected by a password.

Question

Which computers are at risk because of this?

  1. only Darren’s own computer
  2. only the computers in the same room as Darren’s computer
  3. only the computers in the same country as Darren
  4. all computers in the world which are connected to the Internet and set up like Darren’s

Parking Lot

Story

There are 12 spaces for cars in a parking lot. The pictures below show which spaces were used on Monday and which spaces were used on Tuesday.

The parking lot on Monday. The lot has two rows with six spaces each. In the first row, there are cars in spaces 1, 3, and 6. In the second row, there are cars in spaces 3 and 5. All other spaces are empty. The parking lot on Tuesday. The lot has two rows with six spaces each. In the first row, there are cars in spaces 1 and 4. In the second row, there are cars in spaces 4 , 5, and 6. All other spaces are empty.

Question

How many parking spaces were empty on both Monday and Tuesday?

  1. 3
  2. 4
  3. 5
  4. 6

Skaters

Story

Seven people are skating in a line on a very long, frozen canal. They begin as shown below.

Seven skaters in a row, labelled P, Q, R, S, T, U, and V in order from left to right. The skaters are all facing right, with skater V leading.

After every minute the person at the front of the line moves to the end of the line. For example, after one minute, U will be in front of the line, since V will move behind P.

Question

Which skater will be at the front of the line after 9 minutes?

  1. Skater P
  2. Skater R
  3. Skater T
  4. Skater V

Part B

Toy Factory

Story

Toys fall from a high conveyor belt into bags on a low conveyor belt. The toys should fall into the bags with their numerical product codes in increasing order. One of the toys is in the wrong place and needs to be removed so that the remaining toys are in the right order.

The first toy is a wagon with code 10000, next is a rocket ship with code 11000, next is a bear with code 10010, and last is a duck with code 10110.

Question

Which toy must be removed?

  1. Wagon
  2. Rocket Ship
  3. Bear
  4. Duck

Strawberry Hunt

Story

Four beavers swim through canals in an attempt to find a strawberry. They start at different places and always move in the direction of the arrows shown below.

A network of canals form a maze. There is a strawberry in one of the canals, and intersecting canals have arrows indicating the travel direction.

Each beaver either finds the strawberry, swims in a loop forever, or reaches and remains at a dead-end.

Question

How many beavers find the strawberry?

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4

Five Sticks

Story

Nola puts five sticks on the table making this shape:

Figure 1. Five sticks are arranged end to end. One stick is placed vertically. A second stick is placed horizontally to the right at the top end of the first stick. A third stick is placed vertically up from the right end of the second stick. A fourth stick is placed horizontally to the right at the top end of the third stick. A fifth stick is placed vertically down from the right end of the fourth stick.

Then Adam moves one stick to a different place making this shape:

Figure 2. Five sticks are arranged end to end. One stick is placed vertically. A second stick is placed horizontally to the right at the top end of the first stick. A third stick is placed vertically up from the right end of the second stick. A fourth stick is placed horizontally to the left at the top end of the third stick. A fifth stick is placed horizontally at the right end of the third stick.

Now, Vera wants to move one stick to a different place.

Question

Which shape is Vera not able to make?

  1. Five sticks are arranged end to end. One stick is placed vertically. A second stick is placed horizontally to the left at the top end of the first stick. A third stick is placed vertically down from the left end of the second stick. A fourth stick is placed horizontally to the left at the top end of the third stick. A fifth stick is placed horizontally to the left at the left end of the third stick.
  2. Five sticks arranged to form a capital P shape.
  3. Five sticks arranged to form the shape of a capital H on its side.
  4. Five sticks arranged to form the shape of the number 3.

Toy Storage

Story

Tom has two types of toys: animal toys and vehicle toys. Tom fills three boxes by putting three toys in each box. As long as there is room, he puts

  1. vehicles into box A,
  2. animals with striped bodies into box B, and
  3. animals with spotted bodies into box C.

However,

Tom puts the following nine toys into boxes in the following order:

  1. Taxi cab
  2.   Striped tiger
  3. Striped fish
  4. Police car
  5. Car
  6.  Firetruck
  7. Spotted dog
  8. Spotted cow
  9.   Striped zebra

Question

Where does Tom put the dog and zebra?

  1. Tom puts the dog in box C, and the zebra in box B.
  2. Tom puts both in box A.
  3. Tom puts both in box B.
  4. Tom puts both in box C.

Part C

Chameleon

Story

A chameleon travels on the grid below. It moves between adjacent cells either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. In a cell, a chameleon has the same colour as the colour of the cell.

A grid with 5 rows and six columns and multicoloured cells. An alternative format for the grid follows.

Question

What is the minimum number of different colours that the chameleon has when traveling from the lower left of the grid to the upper right?

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4

Wallpaper

Story

Robyn covers a wall with six overlapping rectangular sheets of wallpaper as shown. Each sheet of wallpaper is designed using a different image in a repeating pattern.

A description of the diagram follows.

Question

What is the order of the wallpaper pieces from the one placed first to the one placed last?

  1. Heart, mirror, flower, leaf, basketball, briefcase
  2. Briefcase, basketball, leaf, flower, mirror, heart
  3. Leaf, flower, mirror, heart, basketball, briefcase
  4. Mirror, flower, leaf, basketball, briefcase, heart

Bracket Bracelet

Story

A jewelry shop produces chains used to make bracelets. The chains are built by continually adding matching pairs of bracket-shaped ornaments. There are two types of pairs:

A left blue bracket and a right blue bracket

A left orange bracket and a right orange bracket

After choosing a starting pair, a second pair is either added to the end of the chain or inserted between the previously added pair. This process can be repeated any number of times.

Examples of three different chains that can be produced are shown below.

Two left orange brackets, followed by two right orange brackets, then one left orange bracket, and finally one right orange bracket.

One left orange bracket, one left blue bracket, one left orange bracket, one right orange bracket, one right blue bracket, one right orange bracket.

One left blue bracket, one left orange bracket, one right orange bracket, two left orange brackets, two right orange brackets, one right blue bracket.

Question

Which of the following chains can also be produced?

  1. One left orange bracket, one left blue bracket, one right orange bracket, one right blue bracket.
  2. One right blue bracket, one right orange bracket, one right blue bracket, one left blue bracket, one left orange bracket, one left blue bracket.
  3. Three left blue brackets, three right orange brackets.
  4. One left blue bracket, one left orange bracket, one left blue bracket, one right blue bracket, one right orange bracket, one right blue bracket.

Beehive

Story

A bear studies how many hexagons in a honeycomb contain honey. For each hexagon, the bear records how many other hexagons touching this hexagon contain honey. So this number could be 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. The results of the bear’s study are below.

A description of the diagram follows.

Question

How many hexagons contain honey?

  1. 7
  2. 8
  3. 9
  4. 10