2018 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 14

The following problem is from both the 2018 AMC 12B #10 and 2018 AMC 10B #14, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem

A list of $2018$ positive integers has a unique mode, which occurs exactly $10$ times. What is the least number of distinct values that can occur in the list?

$\textbf{(A)}\ 202\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 223\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 224\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 225\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 234$

Solution 1 (Statistics)

To minimize the number of distinct values, we want to maximize the number of times a number appears. So, we could have $223$ numbers appear $9$ times, $1$ number appear once, and the mode appear $10$ times, giving us a total of $223 + 1 + 1 = \boxed{\textbf{(D)}\ 225}.$

Solution 2 (Algebra)

As in Solution 1, we want to maximize the number of time each number appears to do so. We can set up an equation $10 + 9( x - 1 )\geq2018,$ where $x$ is the number of values. Notice how we can then rearrange the equation into $1 + 9 ( 1 )+9 ( x - 1 )\geq2018,$ which becomes $9 x\geq2017,$ or $x\geq224\frac19.$ We cannot have a fraction of a value so we must round up to $\boxed{\textbf{(D)}\ 225}.$

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Video Solution (HOW TO THINK CRITICALLY!!!)

https://youtu.be/M-z7SJwlsLY

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See Also

2018 AMC 10B (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 13
Followed by
Problem 15
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
All AMC 10 Problems and Solutions
2018 AMC 12B (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 9
Followed by
Problem 11
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
All AMC 12 Problems and Solutions

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