Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 3.2 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

King Qi and Tian Ji are competing in a horse race. Tian Ji's top-tier horse is better than King Qi's middle-tier horse, worse than King Qi's top-tier horse, Tian Ji's middle-tier horse is better than King Qi's bottom-tier horse, worse than King Qi's middle-tier horse, and Tian Ji's bottom-tier horse is worse than King Qi's bottom-tier horse. Now, one horse is randomly selected from each side for a race. What is the probability that Tian Ji's horse wins?

Pick one

Solution

To solve this problem, we first identify the relative strengths of the horses based on the given information. We have three horses from each side, King Qi and Tian Ji, with different tiers: top, middle, and bottom. Let's denote King Qi's horses as AA (top-tier), BB (middle-tier), and CC (bottom-tier), and Tian Ji's horses as aa (top-tier), bb (middle-tier), and cc (bottom-tier).

Given the conditions:
- Tian Ji's top-tier horse (aa) is better than King Qi's middle-tier horse (BB), worse than King Qi's top-tier horse (AA).
- Tian Ji's middle-tier horse (bb) is better than King Qi's bottom-tier horse (CC), worse than King Qi's middle-tier horse (BB).
- Tian Ji's bottom-tier horse (cc) is worse than King Qi's bottom-tier horse (CC).

When a horse is randomly selected from each side for a race, we have the following possible matchups: AaAa, AbAb, AcAc, BaBa, BbBb, BcBc, CaCa, CbCb, CcCc. This gives us a total of 99 combinations.

Next, we determine which matchups result in Tian Ji's horse winning:
- Tian Ji's top-tier horse (aa) wins against King Qi's middle-tier (BB) and bottom-tier (CC) horses, so BaBa and CaCa are winning combinations.
- Tian Ji's middle-tier horse (bb) wins against King Qi's bottom-tier horse (CC), so CbCb is a winning combination.

Thus, Tian Ji's horses win in 33 out of the 99 possible matchups: BaBa, CaCa, CbCb.

Therefore, the probability that Tian Ji's horse wins is calculated as the number of winning combinations divided by the total number of combinations:
39=13 \frac{3}{9} = \frac{1}{3}

So, the correct answer is A: 13\boxed{\text{A: }\frac{1}{3}}.

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Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.