2017 AMC 10 B

Complete problem set with solutions and individual problem pages

Problem 1 Easy

Mary thought of a positive two-digit number. She multiplied it by 3 and added 11. Then she switched the digits of the result, obtaining a number between 71 and 75, inclusive. What was Mary's number? (2017 AMC 10B Problem, Question#1)

  • A.

    11

  • B.

    12

  • C.

    13

  • D.

    14

  • E.

    15

Answer:B

Let her 2-digit number be x. Multiplying by 3 makes it a multiple of 3, meaning that the sum of its digits is divisible by 3. Adding on 11 increases the sum of the digits by 1+1=2, and reversing the digits keeps the sum of the digits the same; this means that the resulting number must be 2 more than a multiple of 3. There are two such numbers between 71 and 75:71: and 74 .Now that we have narrowed down the choices, we can simply test the answers to see which one will provide a two-digit number when the steps are reversed:For 71,we reverse the digits, resulting in 17 Subtracting 11, we get 6.We can already see that dividing this by 3 will not be a two-digit number, so 71 does not meet our requirements.Therefore, the answer must be the reversed steps applied to 74.We have the following: 74\to 47\to 36\to 12Therefore, our answer is 12.

Working backwards, we reverse the digits of each number from 71\sim 75 and subtract 11 from each, so we have 6,16,26,36,46The only numbers from this list that are divisible by 3 are 6 and 36. We divide both by 3, yielding 2 and 12. Since 2 is not a two-digit number, the answer is 12.

You can just plug in the numbers to see which one works. When you get to 12, you multiply by 3 and add 11 to get 47. When you reverse the digits of 47, you get 47, which is within the given range. Thus, the answer is 12.