Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 4.1 AIME Find the answer Italy

Problem:

Vittorio computes the sum of the numbers from 11 to 20242024, but by mistake he skips one of them! Knowing that he obtains a multiple of 55, which of the following could be the skipped number?

Pick one

Solution

Solution:

The answer is (B). First, note that the sum of the numbers from 11 to 20242024 is a multiple of 55. This can be observed directly by knowing that the sum of the numbers from 11 to nn is n(n+1)2\frac{n(n+1)}{2}; alternatively, one can note that each of the following numbers is a multiple of 55: 1+20241+2024, 2+2023,,1012+10132+2023, \ldots, 1012+1013, and therefore so is the sum of these. Since the sum computed by Vittorio is a multiple of 55, the missing number must also be a multiple of 55. The answer is therefore 100100.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement translated into English from it; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.