Maths Olympiad Prep

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Number theory Difficulty 3.6 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

Find the number of positive integers with three not necessarily distinct digits, abcabc, with a0a \neq 0 and c0c \neq 0 such that both abcabc and cbacba are multiples of 44.

A number or a short expression. Spacing and $ signs are ignored.

Solution

A positive integer is divisible by 44 if and only if its last two digits are divisible by 4.4. For any value of bb, there are two possible values for aa and cc, since we find that if bb is even, aa and cc must be either 44 or 88, and if bb is odd, aa and cc must be either 22 or 66. There are thus 22=42 \cdot 2 = 4 ways to choose aa and cc for each b,b, and 1010 ways to choose bb since bb can be any digit. The final answer is then 410=0404 \cdot 10 = \boxed{040}.

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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.