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2011 AMC 10A Problem 5

Problem 5 of 25EasierAlgebra

At an elementary school, the students in third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade run an average of 12,12, 15,15, and 1010 minutes per day, respectively. There are twice as many third graders as fourth graders, and twice as many fourth graders as fifth graders. What is the average number of minutes run per day by these students?

Answer choices

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Solution

WLOG, let there be one fifth grader. This then tells us that there are two fourth graders and four third graders. We can do this, since we are only interested in the average, which is not impacted by the exact number of students. The total number of minutes the students spend running is 124+152+10=88 12 \cdot 4 + 15 \cdot 2 + 10 = 88 minutes. The total number of students is 1+2+4=7.1 + 2 + 4 = 7. The average is then 887.\dfrac{88}{7}. Thus, C is the correct answer.

More practice

Concepts: mean · ratio and proportion

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