Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ia Paper 4 1F b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
By part (a), there are permutations of each alternating type. In an up-down permutation the maximum can occur only at a peak, while in a down-up permutation it can occur only at the complementary positions. Thus, after combining the two types, each possible number of entries to the left of the maximum occurs once.
Choose those labels in ways. The entries on the two sides must independently alternate, and after order-preserving relabelling can be chosen in and ways. This alternating-permutation convolution is