Maths Olympiad Prep

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Combinatorics Difficulty 3.0 Junior Find the answer

Each of the sides of five congruent rectangles is labeled with an integer. In rectangle A, w=4,x=1,y=6,z=9w = 4, x = 1, y = 6, z = 9. In rectangle B, w=1,x=0,y=3,z=6w = 1, x = 0, y = 3, z = 6. In rectangle C, w=3,x=8,y=5,z=2w = 3, x = 8, y = 5, z = 2. In rectangle D, w=7,x=5,y=4,z=8w = 7, x = 5, y = 4, z = 8. In rectangle E, w=9,x=2,y=7,z=0w = 9, x = 2, y = 7, z = 0. These five rectangles are placed, without rotating or reflecting, in position as below. Which of the rectangle is the top leftmost one?

Pick one

Solution

Looking at the list of ww and yy values that must match up left-to-right, we have (w,y)=A(4,6),B(1,3),C(3,5),D(7,4),E(9,7)(w,y) = A(4,6), B(1,3), C(3,5), D(7,4), E(9,7). Looking for digits that only appear once, we see that 99, 66, 11, and 55 cannot match up to other digits, and thus must appear on the ends. 11 and 99 only appear on the left, and thus their respective blocks BB and EE must appear on the left. Similarly, 66 and 55 only appear on the right, and thus their blocks AA and CC must appear on the right-most block of their row. Therefore, DD, the only block without a unique digit, must be the top-center block.
Now that we have placed one block, DD, we can only place block EE to the left of DD, and block AA to the right of DD. Thus, E\boxed{E} is the right answer.
Completing the puzzle, the top boxes read EDAEDA, while the bottom two boxes read BCBC.

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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.