Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 3.9 AMC 10/12 Find the answer Italy

A math competition consists of 90 multiple-choice questions. Camilla answered all the questions: which of the following cannot be the total score achieved by Camilla, given that a correct answer is worth 5 points and a wrong answer is worth -1 point?

Pick one

Solution

Solution:

The answer is (B). Let rr be the number of correct answers given by Camilla; by difference, the number of wrong answers is 90r90 - r, and the total score is 5r+(1)(90r)=6r90=6(r15)5r + (-1)(90 - r) = 6r - 90 = 6(r - 15). It follows that Camilla's score is a multiple of 6, and therefore it cannot be equal to 116=2229116 = 2^{2} \cdot 29, since this number is not divisible by 3. All the other scores are possible: Camilla can total 78,204,318-78, 204, 318 and 402402 points by giving respectively 2, 49, 68 and 82 correct answers; indeed, Camilla's score can be any multiple of 6 between 6(015)=906 \cdot (0 - 15) = -90 and 6(9015)=4506 \cdot (90 - 15) = 450.

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