2024

Beaver
Computing
Challenge
(Grades 7 & 8)

Questions
Part A

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 Beaver Robot

Story
Beaver Robot can say sentences containing exactly 3 words.

• The first word must be chosen from Box 1.

• The second word must be chosen from Box 2.

• The third word must be chosen from Box 3.

Question
Which sentence below cannot be said by Beaver Robot?

(A) CAN YOU HELP

(B) BEAVERS CAN SWIM

(C) I LOVE YOU

(D) YOU NEED ME

3
 Digital Image

Story
Ana created the following digital image.

She did her work in stages. For the last three stages, she added the following parts of the image as
shown in order from left to right.

Now Ana has decided to undo some of her work, removing the parts added in the last three stages.

Question
Which of the following options shows the resulting picture?

(A) (B) (C) (D)

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 Ice Cream Shop

Story
A cool new ice cream shop with a self-service machine has opened! To place an order, you push the
arrow buttons to move the robot to the square with the flavour you want and then press to add a
scoop to the cone. After you have chosen three scoops, your order is prepared.

The robot always starts an order from the START square. For example, from left to right the sequence

makes a cone where the flavours from bottom to top are .

Question
What flavours will be on the ice cream cone, from bottom to top, if the order uses the following sequence,
from left to right?

(A) (C)

(B) (D)

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 Line Drawing

Story
When Pixel tries to draw lines on graph paper, she does this by colouring
in blocks of tiny squares. Each of these squares intersects the line she is
trying to draw. This means she cannot always draw perfectly straight
lines. An example is shown where the blocks of squares Pixel coloured
do not look exactly the same as the straight diagonal line that she is
trying to draw.

A pattern is formed by the shapes and sizes of blocks of squares that

Pixel colours. This pattern repeats every time the line she is trying to
draw passes through a corner of a square. In the example, it is always 3
vertical blocks followed by 2 vertical blocks.

Question
Pixel has started to draw the diagonal line shown and coloured in the first 8 squares as shown. If she
continues drawing the line, then how will she colour the 2 × 3 block of squares shown in grey?

(A) (B) (C) (D)

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 Magic Garden

Story
In a magic garden, flowers can change during the night. If there is a group of at least two flowers of
the same type directly beside each other, then that group of flowers transforms into a group of different
flowers as follows:

• Groups of transform to .

• Groups of transform to .

• Groups of transform to .

A flower never changes more than once per night.

This is what the magic garden looks like one morning.

Question
What will the magic garden look like after four nights have passed?

(A)

(B)

(C)

(D)

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Part B

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 Superbebras

Story
In the computer game Superbebras, the background and the illusion of motion is created using a
sequence of tiles.

Tiles added to the right end of the sequence are chosen according to the rules in the diagram below.
Arrows point directly from each tile to the only tile(s) that can be added immediately to the right of it.

For example, a tile immediately to the right of the tile can only be tile or .

Question
Which of the following images is not a possible Superbebras background?

(A) (C)

(B) (D)

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 Logs and Branches

Story
Sequences of logs and branches are represented by codes, using the following two steps.

1. Moving from left to right in a sequence, each log or branch is represented by the number of branches
to the right of it in the sequence. This gives a sequence of numbers.

2. Then each even number in this sequence is replaced with a 0 and each odd number with a 1, to
obtain its code.

Let’s look at the following sequence as an example.

• The leftmost log has 3 branches to the right of it, so will be represented with a 3.

• The next branch has 2 branches to the right of it, so will be represented with a 2.

• The next branch has 1 branch to the right of it, so will be represented with a 1.

Continuing this process gives the sequence 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0. Its code is 101110.

Question
Which of the following sequences of logs and branches is represented by the code 11101000?

(A)

(B)

(C)

(D)

10
 Spices

Story
Genaro uses his balance scale to weigh the spices he sells. He uses only the following 5 weights on his
scale: 1 gram, 3 grams, 9 grams, 27 grams, and 81 grams.

Genaro always puts the spices on the right side of the scale. To measure 11 grams of spices, he places
his weights as shown.

To help train new employees, Genaro creates codes for different amounts of spices. In his code, L means
the weight is placed on the left side, R means the weight is placed on the right side, and O means the
weight is placed off the scale. Genaro writes each code in order from the smallest weight to the largest
weight. For example, the code for 11 grams of spices is RLLOO, as shown.

Weight (grams) 1 3 9 27 81
Position R L L O O

Question
Among the following four codes, which measures the heaviest amount of spices?

(A) LORLO

(B) RRRRL

(C) LRLLO

(D) OLRLO

11
 Online Class

Story
Nine students are sitting side by side in one row in the library while their teacher conducts an online
lesson from her home. The teacher sees the class from her laptop screen as shown.

Each student is using a different computer, but the teacher’s screen shows who each student is sitting
next to.

Question
Which student is sitting in the middle (5th position) of the row in the library?

(A) Raul

(B) Lee

(C) Busara

(D) Hannah

12
 Collecting Dolls

Story
Beaver Deana enters the maze below carrying a doll of size 1. She then goes through the maze and
collects dolls of different sizes, placing smaller dolls inside larger dolls.

Deana follows the arrows and obeys the following rule whenever she encounters a doll.
• If the doll she encounters is bigger than the biggest doll she already has, she can choose to either
take the doll and put her dolls inside of it, or leave it behind.

• Otherwise, if the doll she encounters is the same size or smaller than the biggest doll she already
has, she must leave the doll behind.

Question
What is the maximum number of dolls that Deana can collect, including the size 1 doll, by the time she
reaches the exit of the maze?
(A) 3

(B) 4

(C) 5

(D) 6

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Part C

14
 Card Art

Story
Manas creates drawings by combining some of the following images:

cloud crown flower person pizza star sun smiley sun

Manas draws on cards following one, single, secret rule. He has created four cards that obey this rule:

Anil observes the cards and creates a new card, but it does not obey the rule.

Question
Which of the following could be the secret rule?

(A) If there is a cloud on the card, then there are no flowers on the card.

(B) There must either be a star on the card, or there is a person holding pizza on the card.

(C) If there is a person holding pizza on the card, then there is no crown on the card.

(D) There must either be a smiley sun on the card, or a cloud on the card.

15
 Gifts

Story
Bernard has wrapped gifts for the 14 students in his class, and numbered the gifts from 1 to 14.

Bernard knows the weight of each gift. After wrapping each gift, Bernard realized that he accidentally
dropped his phone in one of the boxes. In order to avoid unwrapping many gifts, he plans to do the
following:

1. Divide the 14 gifts into 2 piles, with the smallest 7 gift numbers in the first pile and the largest 7
gift numbers in the second pile.

2. Weigh the first pile. If it is heavier than expected, retain the first pile. Otherwise retain the second
pile.

3. Divide the retained pile into 2 piles containing as close to the same number of gifts as possible. If
there is an odd number of gifts, the first pile will have one fewer gift than the second pile. The
smallest gift numbers are in the first pile.

4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until the retained pile has a single gift that contains the phone. Open that
gift to retrieve the phone.

Question
In which of the following situations would Bernard weigh the fewest number of piles?

(A) The phone is in gift number 3.

(B) The phone is in gift number 13.

(C) The phone is in gift number 8.

(D) The phone is in gift number 6.

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 Beaver Travels

Story

A group of beavers left their house .

Some of them went to the museum , and the rest of them went to the forest .

Beavers documented their various travels in the map below. Each circle is a place where beavers
could pass through, and the lines between them are the paths they could take. Each path is labelled
with an arrow indicating the direction the beavers took on that path, and also a number indicat-
ing the number of beavers that took that path. For example, three beavers took the path to the museum.

Unfortunately, some documentation is missing, so some paths are missing their label.

Question
How many beavers went to the forest?

(A) 16

(B) 11

(C) 18

(D) 14

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 Seashell Game

Story
Quinn and Evan are playing a game on the beach involving shells, holes, and lines in the sand.

To play the game, they take turns placing new shells in empty holes, some of which are connected by
lines. The first person to have two of their shells placed in holes directly connected by a line loses the
game.

Quinn plays with one type of shell: , and Evan plays with another type of shell: .

The game has started and each player has completed two turns. The placement of these four shells are
as shown, and the remaining empty holes are numbered 1 through 7.

Question
It’s now Quinn’s turn. In which empty hole should Quinn place her shell if she wants to guarantee a
win in the game?

(A) 1

(B) 2

(C) 5

(D) 7

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 Disappearing Arrows

Story
Fleas A, B, C, and D start a race, in that
order, from position 1 in the picture shown.
They continue to take turns in this order
(A, B, C, D, A, B, . . .) and follow two rules:

1. On their turn, a flea will jump one posi-

tion forward.

2. Arrows provide a one time short cut. If a

flea jumps to a position that has an arrow
leading from it, it immediately jumps to
the position the arrow is pointing to. The
arrow then disappears so that no other
flea can use that arrow.

It is possible for more than one flea to be at

the same position at the same time.

Question
Which flea will finish first?

(A) A

(B) B

(C) C

(D) D

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