Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 3.1 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

Four girls — Mary, Alina, Tina, and Hanna — sang songs in a concert as trios, with one girl sitting out each time. Hanna sang 77 songs, which was more than any other girl, and Mary sang 44 songs, which was fewer than any other girl. How many songs did these trios sing?

Pick one

Solution

Alina and Tina must sing more than 44, but less than 77, songs. Therefore, Alina sang 55 or 66 songs, and Tina sang 55 or 66 songs, with 44 possible combinations.

However, since every song is a trio, if you add up all the numbers of songs a person sang for all four singers, it must be divisible by 33. Thus, 7+4+a+t7 + 4 + a + t must be divisible by 33, and a+t1a+t - 1 must be divisible by 33.

Since 10a+t1210 \le a+t \le 12 by the bounds of 5a,t65 \le a, t \le 6, we have 9a+t1119 \le a + t - 1 \le 11. Because the middle number must be a multiple of 33, we set a+t1=9a + t - 1 = 9, leading to a+t=10a + t = 10 and a=t=5a = t = 5.

So, the four girls sang 4,5,54, 5, 5 and 77 songs in trios. That means there were 4+5+5+73=7\frac{4 + 5 + 5 + 7}{3} = 7 songs sung, and the answer is A\boxed{A}.

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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.