In a cafeteria line, the number of people ahead of Kaukab is equal to two times the number of people behind her. There are people in the line. What is a possible value of ?
Solution
Suppose that there are people behind Kaukab. This means that there are people ahead of her. Including Kaukab, the total number of people in line is , which is one more than a multiple of 3. Of the given choices , the only one that is one more than a multiple of 3 is 25, which equals . Therefore, a possible value for is 25.
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.