Maths Olympiad Prep

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Algebra Difficulty 1.7 Junior Find the answer Canada

Chris received a mark of 50%50\% on a recent test. Chris answered 13 of the first 20 questions correctly. Chris also answered 25%25\% of the remaining questions on the test correctly. If each question on the test was worth one mark, how many questions in total were on the test?

Pick one

Solution

Suppose that there were nn questions on the test.

Since Chris received a mark of 50%50\% on the test, then he answered 12n\frac{1}{2}n of the questions correctly.

We know that Chris answered 13 of the first 20 questions correctly and then 25%25\% of the remaining questions.

Since the test has nn questions, then after the first 20 questions, there are n20n-20 questions.

Since Chris answered 25%25\% of these n20n-20 questions correctly, then Chris answered 14(n20)\frac{1}{4}(n-20) of these questions correctly.

The total number of questions that Chris answered correctly can be expressed as 12n\frac{1}{2}n and also as 13+14(n20)13+\frac{1}{4}(n-20).

Therefore, 12n=13+14(n20)\frac{1}{2}n = 13+\frac{1}{4}(n-20) and so 2n=52+(n20)2n = 52+(n-20), which gives n=32n = 32.

(We can check that if n=32n=32, then Chris answers 13 of the first 20 and 3 of the remaining 12 questions correctly, for a total of 16 correct out of 32.)

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Source: CEMC, University of Waterloo, licensed CC-BY-NC-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.