2004 AMC 10B Problem 3

Problem 3 of 25EasierAlgebra

At each basketball practice last week, Jenny made twice as many free throws as she made at the previous practice. At her fifth practice she made

48

free throws. How many free throws did she make at the first practice?

Show solution

Solution

Working backward from the fifth practice, the counts are

48, 24, 12, 6,

and

3

at the fourth, third, second, and first practices. Thus, the correct answer is A.

Concepts: geometric sequence · work backwards

Problem text and solution from the LIVE past-contest archive. See also the AoPS wiki page for community solutions.