Problem:
Vittorio computes the sum of the numbers from to , but by mistake he skips one of them! Knowing that he obtains a multiple of , which of the following could be the skipped number?
Problem:
Vittorio computes the sum of the numbers from to , but by mistake he skips one of them! Knowing that he obtains a multiple of , which of the following could be the skipped number?
Pick one
Solution:
The answer is (B). First, note that the sum of the numbers from to is a multiple of . This can be observed directly by knowing that the sum of the numbers from to is ; alternatively, one can note that each of the following numbers is a multiple of : , , and therefore so is the sum of these. Since the sum computed by Vittorio is a multiple of , the missing number must also be a multiple of . The answer is therefore .