1986 AHSME Problems/Problem 17
Contents
[hide]Problem
A drawer in a darkened room contains red socks, green socks, blue socks and black socks. A youngster selects socks one at a time from the drawer but is unable to see the color of the socks drawn. What is the smallest number of socks that must be selected to guarantee that the selection contains at least pairs? (A pair of socks is two socks of the same color. No sock may be counted in more than one pair.)
Solution
Solution 1
~ e_power_pi_times_i
Suppose that you wish to draw one pair of socks from the drawer. Then you would pick socks (one of each kind, plus one). Notice that in the worst possible situation, you will continue to draw the same sock, until you get pairs. This is because drawing the same sock results in a pair every of that sock, whereas drawing another sock creates another pair. Thus the answer is .
Solution 2
~ Levieee (formatted shalomkeshet)
We have to choose of socks, i.e socks
We choose socks in the worst possible scenario there will be and socks that are not paired, so we choose more socks to this, but can be the sum of (like )
This means there might be and a few unpaired. If we choose , it cannot be formed by summing . Therefore, must have of socks in it. Note that cannot happen because in the worst case scenario, we have , and if , then pulling out one more will leave us with . However, the question demands . cannot happen either because if we pull out another sock it can be the same colour as the one we pulled out before, meaning it cannot be paired, but if we pull out another one and in the worst case scenario if the colour is same it still forms a pair with the last sock that we pulled out, therefore, the answer is .
See also
1986 AHSME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 16 |
Followed by Problem 18 | |
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.