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Date November 2015 Marks available 5 Reference code 15N.3dm.hl.TZ0.1
Level HL only Paper Paper 3 Discrete mathematics Time zone TZ0
Command term Find Question number 1 Adapted from N/A

Question

The distances by road, in kilometres, between towns in Switzerland are shown in the following table.

A cable television company wishes to connect the six towns placing cables along the road system.

Use Kruskal’s algorithm to find the minimum length of cable needed to connect the six towns.

[5]
a.

Visitors to Switzerland can visit some principal locations for tourism by using a network of scenic railways as represented by the following graph:

(i)     State whether the graph has any Hamiltonian paths or Hamiltonian cycles, justifying your answers.

(ii)     State whether the graph has any Eulerian trails or Eulerian circuits, justifying your answers.

(iii)     The tourist board would like to make it possible to arrive in Geneva, travel all the available scenic railways, exactly once, and depart from Zurich. Find which locations would need to be connected by a further scenic railway in order to make this possible.

[6]
b.

Markscheme

Zurich-Basel     85     M1A1

Berne-Basel     100     A1

Sion-Berne     155

Sion-Geneva     160

Zurich-Lugano     210     A1

total length of pipe needed is 710 km     A1

 

Note:     Award M1 for attempt to start with smallest length.

 

Note:     Accept graphical solution showing lengths chosen.

 

Note:     Award N1 for a correct spanning tree and N1 for 710 km with no method shown.

[6 marks]

a.

(i)     possible Hamiltonian path eg Geneva-Montreux-Zermatt-Lugano-St Moritz-Interlaken-Luzern-Zurich-Berne     A1

no possible Hamiltonian cycles eg we would have to pass through Montreux twice as Geneva is only connected to Montreux or Interlaken twice     R1

(ii)     possible Eulerian trail as there are 2 odd vertices (Geneva and St Moritz)     R1

no possible Eulerian circuits as not all even vertices     R1

 

Note:     Accept an example of a Eulerian trail for the first R1.

 

(iii)     St Moritz to Zurich     A2

 

Note:     If St Moritz and Zurich are connected via existing edges award A1.

[6 marks]

Total [11 marks]

b.

Examiners report

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a.
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b.

Syllabus sections

Topic 10 - Option: Discrete mathematics » 10.9 » Graph algorithms: Kruskal’s; Dijkstra’s.

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