More AMC 8 Problems

Dr. Titu Andreescu November 9, 2013

Problems
1. Complete 12 + 12 6 2 3 with one set of brackets ( ) in order to obtain 12. 2. Evaluate 10000000 100000 90. 3. I am thinking of two numbers. Their sum is 2013 and their dierence is a third of their sum. What numbers am I thinking of? 4. Write the sequence of odd numbers without separating them: 13579111315171921 . . . Find the digit that occupies position 2009. 5. Find the last digit of 20092009 . 6. Find all primes a, b, c satisfying 3a + 6b + 2c = 27 7. Find the positive integers a, b, and c, such that ab = 144, bc = 240, ac = 60 8. A merchant oers a large group of items at 30% o. Later, the merchant takes 20% o the sale prices and claims the nal price of the items is 50% o the original price. What is the actual total discount? 9. What percent of the numbers 1, 2, . . . , 1000 are divisible by at least one of the numbers 4 and 5? 10. Consider the following sequence 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, . . . Find the integer in the 100th position. 11. The sum of 19 consecutive integers is 209. Find the least of these integers. 12. Write the greatest possible number such that there are no repeated digits and no two adjacent digits dier by 1. 13. If the average of three dierent positive integers is 70, what is the greatest possible value of one of these integers? 14. Evaluate 1 + 2 3 + 4 + 5 6 + . . . + 109 + 110 111. 15. How many perfect squares divide 211 313 517 ? 16. How many numbers are in the following sequence? 30, 45, 60, . . . , 2010 17. If the numbers 4a 3 and 4b 3 add up to 2010, nd the sum of the numbers 18. The number of dierent pairs (m, n) of positive integers such that m2 n2 = 2012 is (A) 0 (B) 1 (C) 2 (D) 3 (E) 4 19. Find the greatest number such that if we remove its fractional part, we obtain an integer that 5 is equal to 6 of the original number.
a 3

4 and

b 3

4.

Solutions
1. Complete 12 + 12 6 2 3 with one set of brackets ( ) in order to obtain 12. Solution: This is a fairly simple problem, so we can use the trial-and-error approach. Once we notice that 12 6 2 = 0 we can nally write 12 + (12 6 2) 3 = 12

2. Evaluate 10000000 100000 90. Solution: We can write this as: 100000 100 100000 90 = 100000 (100 90) = 100000 10 = 1000000

3. I am thinking of two numbers. Their sum is 2013 and their dierence is a third of their sum. What numbers am I thinking of? Solution: If the two numbers are x and y , the equations are x + y = 2013 x y = 2013/3 Using the same approach as in the previous problem (Gaussian elimination), we get 2x = and 2y = 4 2 2013 so x = 2013 = 1342 3 3 2 1 2013 so y = 2013 = 671 3 3

4. Write the sequence of odd numbers without separating them: 13579111315171921 . . . Find the digit that occupies position 2009. Solution: The rst 5 digits come from the ve odd single-digit numbers. Next come the 90 digits from the 45 odd 2-digit numbers. They are followed by 3 450 = 1350 digits from the 450 odd 3-digit numbers. The total so far is 5 + 90 + 1350 = 1445. Since 2009 1445 = 564, and 564 is divisible by 4, our digit is the last digit of the 141-st odd 4-digit number, (which is 1000 + 141 2 1 = 1281). Therefore, the 2009-th digit in that sequence is 1.

5. Find the last digit of 20092009 . Solution: Since 20092009 = (200 10 + 9)2009 = 10k + 92009 , the last digit of this integer is given by the last digit of 92009 . Since 2009 is odd, it follows that the last digit is 9.

6. Find all primes a, b, c satisfying 3a + 6b + 2c = 27 Solution: Since 2c = 27 3a 6b = 3(9 a 2b), it follows that c is divisible by 3, hence c = 3. We get 3a + 6b = 21, that is a + 2b = 7. The only possibility is a = 3 and b = 2.

7. Find the positive integers a, b, and c, such that ab = 144, bc = 240, ac = 60 Solution: From the given relations we obtain: (ab)(bc)(ac) = 144 240 60 This relation is equivalent to: (abc)2 = 14402 hence we get abc = 1440. Since bc = 240, from relation a(bc) = 1440, it follows that a = 6. From ab = 144, we get b = 24, and from ac = 60, we get c = 10. The integers satisfying these relations are: a = 6, b = 24, and c = 10 Alternatively, from the second and the third equation, we nd that b = 4a. When we use this with the rst equation, we nd 4a2 = 144, i.e., a = 6. Then b = 24 and c = 10.

8. A merchant oers a large group of items at 30% o. Later, the merchant takes 20% o the sale prices and claims the nal price of the items is 50% o the original price. What is the actual total discount? Solution: The rst discount means that the customer will pay 70% of the original price. The second discount means a selling price of 80% of the discounted price. Because 0.80 0.70 = 56%, the customer pays 56% of the original price and thus receives a 44% discount.

9. What percent of the numbers 1, 2, . . . , 1000 are divisible by at least one of the numbers 4 and 5? Solution: The given array contains 250 numbers that are divisible by 4: 4 1, 4 2, . . . , 4 250, and 200 numbers that are divisible by 5: 5 1, 5 2, . . . , 5 200. However, we overcounted we counted the numbers divisible by both 4 and 5 twice. Those are the multiples of 20: 20 1, 20 2, . . . , 20 50. It follows that we have 250 + 200 50 = 400 numbers divisible by 4 or 400 = 40%. 5 out of the 1000 given numbers, so the percentage is 1000

10. Consider the following sequence 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, . . . Find the integer in the 100th position. Solution: The sequence 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, . . . , k, k, . . . , k
k times

contains 1 + 2 + 3 + + k =

k(k+1) 2

terms.

14 15 For k = 13, we have 132 = 13 7 = 91 < 100, and for k = 14, we have 142 = 7 15 = 105 > 100. It follows that the number in position 91 is 13 and the number in position 92 is 14, hence in position 100 is also 14.

11. The sum of 19 consecutive integers is 209. Find the least of these integers. Solution: Let x be the least of these 19 numbers. Hence x + (x + 1) + . . . + (x + 18) = 19x + 171 = 209 This implies that x = 2.

12. Write the greatest possible number such that there are no repeated digits and no two adjacent digits dier by 1. Solution: Answer: 9758642031.

13. If the average of three dierent positive integers is 70, what is the greatest possible value of one of these integers? Solution: The sum of the three numbers is equal to 210. Note that the other two can either be 1 or 2. Hence the maximum of the third number is 207. Clearly, 208 does not work because it would require one of the other numbers to be 0 or both of them equal. The same reasoning works for 209 and 210.

14. Evaluate 1 + 2 3 + 4 + 5 6 + . . . 109 + 110 111. Solution: In groups of three, this is equal to 0 + 3 + . . . + 108 = 3 (0 + 1 + . . . + 36) = 3 36 37 = 1998 2

15. How many perfect squares divide 211 313 517 ? Solution: A perfect square that divides 211 313 517 is of the form 22a 32b 52c where 2a = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 (6 possibilities) 2b = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 (7 possibilities) 2c = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 (9 possibilities) Hence the total number of perfect squares that divide our given number is 6 7 9 = 378.

16. How many numbers are in the following sequence? 30, 45, 60, . . . , 2010 Solution: The numbers are 15 units apart from each other so there will be a total of 133 numbers in the given sequence.
201030 +1 15

17. If the numbers 4a 3 and 4b 3 add up to 2010, nd the sum of the numbers Solution: We are given that (4a 3) + (4b 3) = 2010 hence a+b= Hence 2010 + 6 = 504 4

a 3

4 and

b 3

4.

a b a+b 504 4+ 4= 8= 8 = 168 8 = 160 3 3 3 3

18. The number of dierent pairs (m, n) of positive integers such that m2 n2 = 2012 is (A) 0 (B) 1 (C) 2 (D) 3 (E) 4 Solution: The answer is (B). Because (m n) + (m + n) = 2m is an even number, (m n) and (m + n) are both even or both odd. They cannot be odd, because (m n)(m + n) = 2012 an even number. Hence m n = 2a and m + n = 2b for some positive integers a and b, a < b. It follows that (2a)(2b) = 2012, implying ab = 503, a prime number. Hence a = 1 and b = 503, yielding the unique pair (m, n) = (504, 502)

19. Find the greatest number such that if we remove its fractional part, we obtain an integer that 5 of the original number. is equal to 6 Solution: Let x and {x} be the integer and fractional part of x, respectively. We have ( x + {x}). This reduces to 6 x = 5 x + 5{x} or x = 5{x}. It x = x + {x} and x = 5 6 follows that {x} = 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, or 0.8. The greatest x is obtained for {x} = 0.8 and is equal to 4.8.