Problems from Brilliant end up on competitions

Hello everyone! I'd like to discuss something interesting I have encountered recently...

Below is some of the problems posed on this year's mathematical competition held in my country. Pay attention to the problem No.1:

I have encountered exactly the same problem,here on Brilliant. Judging by the dates, one of the solutions for this problem on Brilliant was written back in 2015, while the competition was held in February 2017.

So, what do you think? Is this OK or not? Has this ever happened to you?

Easy Math Editor

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Math	Appears as
Remember to wrap math in `$` ... `$` or `\[` ... `\]` to ensure proper formatting.
`2 \times 3`	$2 \times 3$
`2^{34}`	$2^{34}$
`a_{i-1}`	$a_{i-1}$
`\frac{2}{3}`	$\frac{2}{3}$
`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$

Comments

Whoa! That is interesting.

Agnishom Chattopadhyay - 3 years, 7 months ago

Something tells me there's some more of "stolen" problems like this one... I'll do a little research about it

Novak Radivojević - 3 years, 7 months ago

Thats just weird....

A Former Brilliant Member - 3 years, 7 months ago

That's a very nice surprise indeed. A lot of the problems here reflect existing math competitions like MathCounts, AMC, AIME, national olympiads, IMO, etc.

The most likely reason is that the problem was inspired by or originally from another competition. Most of these competition problems are based on similar ideas, and so it's not a surprise that a similar / identical problem appears (esp since there is very little to distinguish the setup).

Calvin Lin Staff - 3 years, 6 months ago

Math	Appears as
Remember to wrap math in `\(` ... `\)` or `\[` ... `\]` to ensure proper formatting.
`2 \times 3`	$2 \times 3$
`2^{34}`	$2^{34}$
`a_{i-1}`	$a_{i-1}$
`\frac{2}{3}`	$\frac{2}{3}$
`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$