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2009 AMC 10A Problem 22

Problem 22 of 25HarderCounting & Probability

Two cubical dice each have removable numbers 11 through 6.6. The twelve numbers on the two dice are removed, put into a bag, then drawn one at a time and randomly reattached to the faces of the cubes, one number to each face. The dice are then rolled and the numbers on the two top faces are added. What is the probability that the sum is 7?7?

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Solution

Randomly attaching the tiles and then rolling is equivalent to choosing two of the twelve numbers at random and adding them. Suppose the first top face shows N.N. For a sum of 7,7, the second must be 7N,7 - N, and there are exactly 22 tiles equal to 7N7 - N among the remaining 11.11. So the probability is 211.\dfrac{2}{11}. Thus, the correct answer is D.

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Concepts: dice (probability) · basic probability · symmetry

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