Difference between revisions of "2023 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 16"

Revision as of 16:43, 9 November 2023

Problem

In a table tennis tournament every participant played every other participant exactly once. Although there were twice as many right-handed players as left-handed players, the number of games won by left-handed players was $40\%$ more than the number of games won by right-handed players. (There were no ties and no ambidextrous players.) What is the total number of games played?

$\textbf{(A) }15\qquad\textbf{(B) }36\qquad\textbf{(C) }45\qquad\textbf{(D) }48\qquad\textbf{(E) }66$

Solution 1 (3 min solve)

We know that the total amount of games must be the sum of games won by left and right handed players. Then, we can write $g = l + r$ , and since $l = 1.4r$ , $g = 2.4r$ . Given that $r$ and $g$ are both integers, $g/2.4$ also must be an integer. From here we can see that $g$ must be divisible by 12, leaving only answers B and D. Now we know the formula for how many games are played in this tournament is $n(n-1)/2$ , the sum of the first $n-1$ triangular numbers. Now setting 36 and 48 equal to the equation will show that two consecutive numbers must equal 72 or 96. Clearly $72=8*9$ , so the answer is \text{\boxed{(B)36}}.