Practice (137)
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Steve says to Jon, 'I am thinking of a polynomial whose roots are all positive integers. The polynomial has the form $$P(x) = 2x^3-2ax^2+(a^2-81)x-c$$
for some positive integers $a$ and $c$. Can you tell me the values of $a$ and $c$?' After some calculations, Jon says, 'There is more than one such polynomial.' Steve says, 'You're right. Here is the value of $a$.' He writes down a positive integer and asks, 'Can you tell me the value of $c$?' Jon says, 'There are still two possible values of $c$.' Find the sum of the two possible values of $c$.
There are $n$ points, $A_1$, $A_2$, $\cdots$, $A_n$ on a line segment, $\overline{A_0A_{n+1}}$. The point $A_0$ is black, $A_{n+1}$ is white, and the rest points are colored randomly either black or white. Prove: among these $n+1$ line segments $A_kA_{k+1}$, where $k=0, 1, \cdots, n$, the number of those with different colored ending points is odd.
Joe wrote $3$ positive integers on the whiteboard, then erased one number and replaced with the sum of the other two numbers minus $1$. He continued doing this and stopped when there're $17$, $1967$ and $1983$ on the whiteboard. Is it possible that the initial three numbers Joe wrote are $2$, $2$ and $2$?
A league with $12$ teams holds a round-robin tournament, with each team playing every other team exactly once. Games either end with one team victorious or else end in a draw. A team scores $2$ points for every game it wins and $1$ point for every game it draws. Which of the following is NOT a true statement about the list of $12$ scores?
David, Hikmet, Jack, Marta, Rand, and Todd were in a $12$-person race with $6$ other people. Rand finished $6$ places ahead of Hikmet. Marta finished $1$ place behind Jack. David finished $2$ places behind Hikmet. Jack finished $2$ places behind Todd. Todd finished $1$ place behind Rand. Marta finished in $6^{th}$ place. Who finished in $8^{th}$ place?
In the addition shown below $A$, $B$, $C$, and $D$ are distinct digits. How many different values are possible for $D$?
Danica drove her new car on a trip for a whole number of hours, averaging $55$ miles per hour. At the beginning of the trip, $abc$ miles was displayed on the odometer, where $abc$ is a $3$-digit number with $a \geq{1}$ and $a+b+c \leq{7}$. At the end of the trip, the odometer showed $cba$ miles. What is $a^2+b^2+c^2?$.
Barbara and Jenna play the following game, in which they take turns. A number of coins lie on a table. When it is Barbara's turn, she must remove $2$ or $4$ coins, unless only one coin remains, in which case she loses her turn. When it is Jenna's turn, she must remove $1$ or $3$ coins. A coin flip determines who goes first. Whoever removes the last coin wins the game. Assume both players use their best strategy. Who will win when the game starts with $2013$ coins and when the game starts with $2014$ coins?
When trying to recall some facts about the ages of his three aunts, Josh made the following claims:
- Alice is fifteen years younger than twice Catherine's age.
- Beatrice is twelve years older than half of Alice's age.
- Catherine is eight years younger than Beatrice.
- The three women\u2019s ages add to exactly one-hundred years.
However, Josh's memory is not perfect, and in fact only three of these four claims are true. If each aunt's age is an integer number of years, how old is Beatrice?
Let $S$ be a subset of $\{1,2,3,\dots,30\}$ with the property that no pair of distinct elements in $S$ has a sum divisible by $5$. What is the largest possible size of $S$?
There are $5$ coins placed flat on a table according to the figure. What is the order of the coins from top to bottom?
Let $R$ be a square region and $n \geq 4$ an integer. A point $X$ in the interior of $R$ is called $n$-ray partitional if there are $n$ rays emanating from $X$ that divide $R$ into $n$ triangles of equal area. How many points are $100$-ray partitional but not $60$-ray partitional?
A frog located at $(x,y)$, with both $x$ and $y$ integers, makes successive jumps of length $5$ and always lands on points with integer coordinates. Suppose that the frog starts at $(0,0)$ and ends at $(1,0)$. What is the smallest possible number of jumps the frog makes?
A palindrome, such as $83438$, is a number that remains the same when its digits are reversed. The numbers $x$ and $(x+32)$ are three-digit and four-digit palindromes, respectively. What is the sum of the digits of $x$?
A month with $31$ days has the same number of Mondays and Wednesdays.How many of the seven days of the week could be the first day of this month?
Three cubes are each formed from the pattern shown. They are then stacked on a table one on top of another so that the $13$ visible numbers have the greatest possible sum. What is that sum?
A $4\times 4$ block of calendar dates is shown. The order of the numbers in the second row is to be reversed. Then the order of the numbers in the fourth row is to be reversed. Finally, the numbers on each diagonal are to be added. What will be the positive difference between the two diagonal sums?
The $8\times18$ rectangle $ABCD$ is cut into two congruent hexagons, as shown, in such a way that the two hexagons can be repositioned without overlap to form a square. What is $y$?
The regular 5-point star $ABCDE$ is drawn and in each vertex, there is a number. Each $A,B,C,D,$ and $E$ are chosen such that all 5 of them came from set $\{3,5,6,7,9\}$. Each letter is a different number (so one possible way is $A = 3, B = 5, C = 6, D = 7, E = 9$). Let $AB$ be the sum of the numbers on $A$ and $B$, and so forth. If $AB, BC, CD, DE,$ and $EA$ form an arithmetic sequence (not necessarily in increasing order), find the value of $CD$.
A faulty car odometer proceeds from digit 3 to digit 5, always skipping the digit 4, regardless of position. If the odometer now reads 002005, how many miles has the car actually traveled?
Let $a,b,c,d,e,f,g$ and $h$ be distinct elements in the set $\{-7,-5,-3,-2,2,4,6,13\}.$
What is the minimum possible value of $(a+b+c+d)^{2}+(e+f+g+h)^{2}?$
What is the minimum number of small squares that must be colored black so that a line of symmetry lies on the diagonal $\overline{BD}$ of square $ABCD$?
The results of a cross-country team's training run are graphed below. Which student has the greatest average speed?
Alice and Bob play a game involving a circle whose circumference is divided by $12$ equally-spaced points. The points are numbered clockwise, from $1$ to $12$. Both start on point $12$. Alice moves clockwise and Bob, counterclockwise. In a turn of the game, Alice moves $5$ points clockwise and Bob moves $9$ points counterclockwise. The game ends when they stop on the same point. How many turns will this take?
Initially, a spinner points west. Chenille moves it clockwise $2 \frac{1}{4}$ revolutions and then counterclockwise $3 \frac{3}{4}$ revolutions. In what direction does the spinner point after the two moves?
