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2021 Fall AMC 10A Problem 10

Problem 10 of 25EasierAlgebraCounting & Probability

A school has 100100 students and 55 teachers. In the first period, each student is taking one class, and each teacher is teaching one class. The enrollments in the classes are 50,50, 20,20, 20,20, 5,5, and 5.5. Let tt be the average value obtained if a teacher is picked at random and the number of students in their class is noted. Let ss be the average value obtained if a student was picked at random and the number of students in their class, including the student, is noted. What is ts?t-s?

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Solution

Recall the expected-value formula E[X]=xxPr(X=x). \mathbb E[X]=\sum_x x\,\Pr(X=x). Therefore, t=15(50+20+20+5+5) t = \dfrac{1}{5} (50 + 20 + 20 + 5 + 5) =15100=20 = \dfrac{1}{5} \cdot 100 = 20 and s=5050100+2020100 s = 50 \cdot \dfrac{50}{100} + 20 \cdot \dfrac{20}{100} +2020100+55100+55100 + 20 \cdot \dfrac{20}{100} + 5 \cdot \dfrac{5}{100} + 5 \cdot \dfrac{5}{100} =25+4+4+0.25+0.25=33.5 \begin{aligned} &= 25 + 4 + 4 + 0.25 + 0.25 \\ &= 33.5 \end{aligned} ts=13.5.t - s = -13.5. Thus, B is the correct answer.

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Concepts: expected value · mean

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