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2015 AMC 10B Problem 15

Problem 15 of 25IntermediateNumber Theory

The town of Hamlet has 33 people for each horse, 44 sheep for each cow, and 33 ducks for each person. Which of the following could not possibly be the total number of people, horses, sheep, cows, and ducks in Hamlet?

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Solution

If there are hh horses and cc cows, then there are 3h3h people, 9h9h ducks, and 4c4c sheep. The total is therefore 13h+5c13h+5c. The listed values except 4747 can be written in that form: 41=132+53,59=133+54,61=132+57,66=132+58. \begin{gathered} 41=13\cdot2+5\cdot3, \\ 59=13\cdot3+5\cdot4, \\ 61=13\cdot2+5\cdot7, \\ 66=13\cdot2+5\cdot8. \end{gathered} For 4747, subtracting 0,13,26,390,13,26,39 leaves 47,34,21,847,34,21,8, none of which is divisible by 55. Thus, the correct answer is B.

More practice

Concepts: Diophantine Equation · modular arithmetic

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