1980 AHSME Problems/Problem 15

Problem

A store prices an item in dollars and cents so that when 4% sales tax is added, no rounding is necessary because the result is exactly $n$ dollars where $n$ is a positive integer. The smallest value of $n$ is

$\text{(A)} \ 1 \qquad \text{(B)} \ 13 \qquad \text{(C)} \ 25 \qquad \text{(D)} \ 26 \qquad \text{(E)} \ 100$


Solution

Say that the price of the item in cents is $x$ (so $x$ is a positive integer as well). The sales tax would then be $\frac{x}{25}$, so $n=\frac{1}{100}\left( x+\frac{x}{25}\right)=\frac{26x}{2500}=\frac{13x}{1250}$.

Since $x$ is positive integer, the smallest possible integer value for $n=\frac{13x}{1250}$ occurs when $x=1250$, which gives us the answer $\fbox{\text{(B)13}}$.

See also

1980 AHSME (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 14
Followed by
Problem 16
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
All AHSME Problems and Solutions

The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions. AMC logo.png