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2016 AMC 12B

All 25 problems from the 2016 AMC 12B. Take it as a timed mock test — 1:15:00 on the clock, scored the way the real contest is — or read through the problems and open any of them for hints and a worked solution.

25 problems · 6 points correct, 1.5 for blank, 0 for wrong

  1. What is the value of 2a−1+a−12a \frac{2a^{-1}+\frac{a^{-1}}{2}}{a} when a=12?a=\tfrac12?
  2. The harmonic mean of two numbers can be computed as twice their product divided by their sum. The harmonic mean of 11 and 20162016 is closest to which integer?
  3. Let x=−2016.x=-2016. What is the value of ∣  ∣ ∣x∣−x ∣−∣x∣  ∣−x? \Big|\;\big|\,|x|-x\,\big|-|x|\;\Big|-x?
  4. The ratio of the measures of two acute angles is 5:4,5:4, and the complement of one of these two angles is twice as large as the complement of the other. What is the sum of the degree measures of the two angles?
  5. The War of 18121812 started with a declaration of war on Thursday, June 18,18, 1812.1812. The peace treaty to end the war was signed 919919 days later, on December 24,24, 1814.1814. On what day of the week was the treaty signed?
  6. All three vertices of △ABC\triangle ABC lie on the parabola defined by y=x2,y=x^2, with AA at the origin and BC‾\overline{BC} parallel to the xx-axis. The area of the triangle is 64.64. What is the length of BC?BC?
  7. Josh writes the numbers 1,1, 2,2, 3,3, …,\ldots, 99,99, 100.100. He marks out 1,1, skips the next number (2),(2), marks out 3,3, and continues skipping and marking out the next number to the end of his list. Then he goes back to the start of his list, marks out the first remaining number (2),(2), skips the next number (4),(4), marks out 6,6, skips 8,8, marks out 10,10, and so on to the end. Josh continues in this manner until only one number remains. What is that number?
  8. A thin piece of wood of uniform density in the shape of an equilateral triangle with side length 33 inches weighs 1212 ounces. A second piece of the same type of wood, with the same thickness, also in the shape of an equilateral triangle, has side length 55 inches. Which of the following is closest to the weight, in ounces, of the second piece?
  9. Carl decided to fence in his rectangular garden. He bought 2020 fence posts, placed one on each of the four corners, and spaced out the rest evenly along the edges of the garden, leaving exactly 44 yards between neighboring posts. The longer side of his garden, including the corners, has twice as many posts as the shorter side, including the corners. What is the area, in square yards, of Carl’s garden?
  10. A quadrilateral has vertices P(a,b),P(a,b), Q(b,a),Q(b,a), R(−a,−b),R(-a,-b), and S(−b,−a),S(-b,-a), where aa and bb are integers with a>b>0.a\gt b\gt0. The area of PQRSPQRS is 16.16. What is a+b?a+b?
  11. How many squares whose sides are parallel to the axes and whose vertices have coordinates that are integers lie entirely within the region bounded by the line y=πx,y=\pi x, the line y=−0.1,y=-0.1, and the line x=5.1?x=5.1?
  12. All the numbers 1,1, 2,2, 3,3, 4,4, 5,5, 6,6, 7,7, 8,8, 99 are written in a 3×33\times3 array of squares, one number in each square, in such a way that if two numbers are consecutive then they occupy squares that share an edge. The numbers in the four corners add up to 18.18. What number is in the center?
  13. Alice and Bob live 1010 miles apart. One day Alice looks due north from her house and sees an airplane. At the same time Bob looks due west from his house and sees the same airplane. The angle of elevation of the airplane is 30∘30^\circ from Alice’s position and 60∘60^\circ from Bob’s position. Which of the following is closest to the airplane’s altitude, in miles?
  14. The sum of an infinite geometric series is a positive number S,S, and the second term in the series is 1.1. What is the smallest possible value of S?S?
  15. All the numbers 2,2, 3,3, 4,4, 5,5, 6,6, 77 are assigned to the six faces of a cube, one number to each face. For each of the eight vertices of the cube, a product of three numbers is computed, where the three numbers are the numbers assigned to the three faces that include that vertex. What is the greatest possible value of the sum of these eight products?
  16. In how many ways can 345345 be written as the sum of an increasing sequence of two or more consecutive positive integers?
  17. In △ABC\triangle ABC shown in the figure, AB=7,AB=7, BC=8,BC=8, CA=9,CA=9, and AH‾\overline{AH} is an altitude. Points DD and EE lie on sides AC‾\overline{AC} and AB‾,\overline{AB}, respectively, so that BD‾\overline{BD} and CE‾\overline{CE} are angle bisectors, intersecting AH‾\overline{AH} at QQ and P,P, respectively. What is PQ?PQ?
  18. What is the area of the region enclosed by the graph of the equation x2+y2=∣x∣+∣y∣?x^2+y^2=|x|+|y|?
  19. Tom, Dick, and Harry are playing a game. Starting at the same time, each of them flips a fair coin repeatedly until he gets his first head, at which point he stops. What is the probability that all three flip their coins the same number of times?
  20. A set of teams held a round-robin tournament in which every team played every other team exactly once. Every team won 1010 games and lost 1010 games; there were no ties. How many sets of three teams {A,B,C}\{A,B,C\} were there in which AA beat B,B, BB beat C,C, and CC beat A?A?
  21. Let ABCDABCD be a unit square. Let Q1Q_1 be the midpoint of CD‾.\overline{CD}. For i=1,i=1, 2,2, …,\ldots, let PiP_i be the intersection of AQi‾\overline{AQ_i} and BD‾,\overline{BD}, and let Qi+1Q_{i+1} be the foot of the perpendicular from PiP_i to CD‾.\overline{CD}. What is ∑i=1∞Area of △DQiPi? \sum_{i=1}^{\infty}\text{Area of }\triangle DQ_iP_i?
  22. For a certain positive integer nn less than 1000,1000, the decimal equivalent of 1n\dfrac1n is 0.abcdef‾,0.\overline{abcdef}, a repeating decimal of period 6,6, and the decimal equivalent of 1n+6\dfrac{1}{n+6} is 0.wxyz‾,0.\overline{wxyz}, a repeating decimal of period 4.4. In which interval does nn lie?
  23. What is the volume of the region in three-dimensional space defined by the inequalities ∣x∣+∣y∣+∣z∣≤1|x|+|y|+|z|\le1 and ∣x∣+∣y∣+∣z−1∣≤1?|x|+|y|+|z-1|\le1?
  24. There are exactly 77,00077{,}000 ordered quadruples (a,b,c,d)(a,b,c,d) such that gcd⁡(a,b,c,d)=77\gcd(a,b,c,d)=77 and lcm(a,b,c,d)=n.\text{lcm}(a,b,c,d)=n. What is the smallest possible value of n?n?
  25. The sequence (an)(a_n) is defined recursively by a0=1,a_0=1, a1=219,a_1=\sqrt[19]{2}, and an=an−1an−22a_n=a_{n-1}a_{n-2}^2 for n≥2.n\ge2. What is the smallest positive integer kk such that the product a1a2⋯aka_1a_2\cdots a_k is an integer?

0 of 25 answered. Each problem left blank still scores 1.5 points.

Practise one problem at a time, with hints and solutions, on the practice page. Or work through the same ideas across every year by topic, or browse the full AMC 12 archive.