The British Informatics Olympiad is the computing competition for schools and colleges. We are proud to present BIO'98.

The 1998 British Informatics Olympiad exam

Time allowed: 3 hours

You should write a program for part (a) of each question, and produce written answers to the remaining parts. Programs may be used to help produce the answers to these written questions. You may use a calculator and the on-line help that your programming language provides.

Mark the first page used for your written answers with your name, age in years and school/college. Number all pages in order if you use more than one sheet. All of your computer programs should display your name and school/college when they are run, and the floppy disk you use to submit the programs should also show your name and school/college.

For your programs to be marked, the source code must be saved, along with executables if your language includes a compiler. This includes programs used to help answer written questions. You should also clearly indicate the name given to each program on your answer sheet(s).

Sample runs are given for parts 1(a), 2(a) and 3(a). Bold text indicates output from the program, and normal text shows data that has been entered. The output format of your programs should follow the 'sample run' examples. Your programs should take less than two minutes of processing time for each test.

Attempt as many questions as you can. Marks allocated to each part are shown in square brackets next to the questions. Partial solutions (such as programs that only satisfy some of the specified requirements, or partly completed written answers) may get partial marks. You may answer the questions in any order.

• Index of BIO'98 exam
• Index of BIO'99 sample paper