Skip to main content

2005 AMC 10B Problem 25

Problem 25 of 25HarderAlgebraCounting & Probability

A subset BB of the set of integers from 11 to 100,100, inclusive, has the property that no two elements of BB sum to 125.125. What is the maximum possible number of elements in B?B?

Answer choices

Show solution

Solution

The pairs summing to 125125 are (25,100),(26,99),,(62,63),(25, 100), (26, 99), \ldots, (62, 63), which is 6225+1=3862 - 25 + 1 = 38 pairs. From each pair, BB may contain at most one element. The numbers 11 through 2424 cannot pair with anything in range to sum to 125,125, so all 2424 of them may be included. Thus BB has at most 38+24=6238 + 24 = 62 elements, and the set {1,2,,62}\{1, 2, \ldots, 62\} achieves this. Thus, C is the correct answer.

More practice

Concepts: subsets · pairing and grouping · extremal argument

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