The cookies in a cookie jar contain a total of 100 raisins. All but one of the cookies are the same size and contain the same number of raisins. One cookie is larger and contains one more raisin than each of the others. The number of cookies in the jar is between 5 and 10, inclusive. How many raisins are in the larger cookie?
Solution
Let be the number of cookies in the cookie jar. Let be the number of raisins in each of the smaller, identical cookies. This means that there are raisins in the larger cookie. If we removed one raisin from the larger cookie, it too would have raisins and so each of the cookies would have the same number of raisins , and the total number of raisins in the cookies would be . From this, we obtain . Since is between 5 and 10, then we must have ; that is, and . Since there are 11 raisins in each of the smaller cookies, then there are raisins in the larger cookie.
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