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2016 AMC 10A Problem 20

Problem 20 of 25HarderCombinatorics

For some particular value of N,N, when (a+b+c+d+1)N(a+b+c+d+1)^N is expanded and like terms are combined, the resulting expression contains exactly 10011001 terms that include all four variables a,a, b,b, c,c, and d,d, each to some positive power. What is N?N?

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Solution

A term that includes all four variables has form avbwcxdya^vb^wc^xd^y, with v,w,x,y≥1v,w,x,y\ge1, multiplied by some power of 11. If that power is zz, then v+w+x+y+z=N.v+w+x+y+z=N. After subtracting 11 from each of v,w,x,yv,w,x,y, this becomes a nonnegative stars-and-bars count with 55 variables summing to N−4N-4. The number of such terms is (N4).\binom{N}{4}. Since (144)=1001\binom{14}{4}=1001, we get N=14N=14. Thus, the correct answer is B.
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