Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 3.4 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

Four coins are picked out of a piggy bank that contains a collection of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Which of the following could not be the total value of the four coins, in cents?

Pick one

Solution

As all five options are divisible by 55, we may not use any pennies. (This is because a penny is the only coin that is not divisible by 55, and if we used between 11 and 44 pennies, the sum would not be divisible by 55.)
Hence the smallest coin we can use is a nickel, and thus the smallest amount we can get is 45=204\cdot 5 = 20. Therefore the option that is not reachable is 15\boxed{15} \Rightarrow (A)(A).
We can verify that we can indeed get the other ones:

25=10+5+5+525 = 10+5+5+5
35=10+10+10+535 = 10+10+10+5
45=25+10+5+545 = 25+10+5+5
55=25+10+10+1055 = 25+10+10+10

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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.