Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /351 of 520

Algebra Difficulty 5.5 AIME, harder Find the answer

2. (16 points) In a school, the ratio of male to female students in the first year of junior high school is 8:78: 7. After one year, 40 new students are transferred in, and the ratio of male to female students becomes 17:15. By the third year of junior high school, some students have transferred out, and some new students have transferred in, resulting in a net increase of 10 students. At this point, the ratio of male to female students is 7:6. How many male and female students were admitted in the first year of junior high school?
Note: The number of first-year junior high school students admitted does not exceed 1000.

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

Solution

2. Let the total number of new students in Grade 7 be 15a15 a people, the total number of students in Grade 8 be 32b32 b people, and the total number of students in Grade 9 be 13c13 c people, where aa, bb, and cc are integers. From the problem, we have
{15a+40=32b,15a+50=13c. \left\{\begin{array}{l} 15 a+40=32 b, \\ 15 a+50=13 c . \end{array}\right.
Subtracting (1) from (2) gives c=2(16b+5)13c=\frac{2(16 b+5)}{13}, so (16b+5)(16 b+5) is a multiple of 13. Let 16b=13k+816 b=13 k+8, i.e.,
8(2b1)=13k 8(2 b-1)=13 k \text {. }

Thus, kk is a multiple of 8, and an odd multiple.
When k=8×1k=8 \times 1, b=7b=7 substituting into (1) gives
32×740=184,15×184; 32 \times 7-40=184,15 \times 184 ;

When k=8×3k=8 \times 3, b=20b=20 substituting into (1) gives
32×2040=600,15×600 32 \times 20-40=600,15 \times 600 \text {; }

When k=8×5k=8 \times 5, b=33b=33 substituting into (1) gives
32×3340=1016>1000, and 151016 32 \times 33-40=1016>1000 \text {, and } 15 \nmid 1016 \text {. }

In summary, the school admits 600 new students in Grade 7, of which 600×815=320600 \times \frac{8}{15}=320 are boys, and 280 are girls.

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

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