1996 AHSME Problems

Problem 1

The addition below is incorrect. What is the largest digit that can be changed to make the addition correct?

$\begin{tabular}{r}&\ \texttt{6 4 1}\\ \texttt{8 5 2} &+\texttt{9 7 3}\\ \hline \texttt{2 4 5 6}\end{tabular}$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg)

$\text{(A)}\ 4\qquad\text{(B)}\ 5\qquad\text{(C)}\ 6\qquad\text{(D)}\ 7\qquad\text{(E)}\ 8$

Solution

Problem 2

Each day Walter gets $3$ dollars for doing his chores or $5$ dollars for doing them exceptionally well. After $10$ days of doing his chores daily, Walter has received a total of $36$ dollars. On how many days did Walter do them exceptionally well?

$\text{(A)}\ 3\qquad\text{(B)}\ 4\qquad\text{(C)}\ 5\qquad\text{(D)}\ 6\qquad\text{(E)}\ 7$

Solution

Problem 3

$\frac{(3!)!}{3!}=$

$\text{(A)}\ 1\qquad\text{(B)}\ 2\qquad\text{(C)}\ 6\qquad\text{(D)}\ 40\qquad\text{(E)}\ 120$

Solution

Problem 4

Six numbers from a list of nine integers are $7,8,3,5, 9$ and $5$ . The largest possible value of the median of all nine numbers in this list is

$\text{(A)}\ 5\qquad\text{(B)}\6\qquad\text{(C)}\ 7\qquad\text{(D)}\ 8\qquad\text{(E)}\ 9$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg)

Solution

Problem 5

Given that $0 < a < b < c < d$ , which of the following is the largest?

$\text{(A)}\ \frac{a+b}{c+d} \qquad\text{(B)}\ \frac{a+d}{b+c} \qquad\text{(C)}\ \frac{b+c}{a+d} \qquad\text{(D)}\ \frac{b+d}{a+c} \qquad\text{(E)}\ \frac{c+d}{a+b}$

Solution

Problem 6

If $f(x) = x^{(x+1)}(x+2)^{(x+3)}$ , then $f(0)+f(-1)+f(-2)+f(-3) =$

$\text{(A)}\ -\frac{8}{9}\qquad\text{(B)}\ 0\qquad\text{(C)}\ \frac{8}{9}\qquad\text{(D)}\ 1\qquad\text{(E)}\ \frac{10}{9}$

Solution

Problem 7

A father takes his twins and a younger child out to dinner on the twins' birthday. The restaurant charges $4.95$ for the father and $0.45$ for each year of a child's age, where age is defined as the age at the most recent birthday. If the bill is $9.45$ , which of the following could be the age of the youngest child?

$\text{(A)}\ 1\qquad\text{(B)}\ 2\qquad\text{(C)}\ 3\qquad\text{(D)}\ 4\qquad\text{(E)}\ 5$

Solution

Problem 8

If $3 = k\cdot 2^r$ and $15 = k\cdot 4^r$ , then $r =$

$\text{(A)}\ -\log_{2}5\qquad\text{(B)}\ \log_{5}2\qquad\text{(C)}\ \log_{10}5\qquad\text{(D)}\ \log_{2}5\qquad\text{(E)}\ \frac{5}{2}$

Solution

Problem 9

Triangle $PAB$ and square $ABCD$ are in perpendicular planes. Given that $PA = 3, PB = 4$ and $AB = 5$ , what is $PD$ ?

$\text{(A)}\ 5\qquad\text{(B)}\ \sqrt{34} \qquad\text{(C)}\ \sqrt{41}\qquad\text{(D)}\ 2\sqrt{13}\qquad\text{(E)}\ 8$

Solution

Problem 10

How many line segments have both their endpoints located at the vertices of a given cube?

$\text{(A)}\ 12\qquad\text{(B)}\ 15\qquad\text{(C)}\ 24\qquad\text{(D)}\ 28\qquad\text{(E)}\ 56$

Solution

Problem 11

Given a circle of raidus $2$ , there are many line segments of length $2$ that are tangent to the circle at their midpoints. Find the area of the region consisting of all such line segments.

$\text{(A)}\ \frac{\pi} 4\qquad\text{(B)}\ 4-\pi\qquad\text{(C)}\ \frac{\pi} 2\qquad\text{(D)}\ \pi\qquad\text{(E)}\ 2\pi$

Solution

Problem 12

A function $f$ from the integers to the integers is defined as follows:

$f(x) =\begin{cases}n+3 &\text{if n is odd}\\ n/2 &\text{if n is even}\end{cases}$

Suppose $k$ is odd and $f(f(f(k))) = 27$ . What is the sum of the digits of $k$ ?

$\textbf{(A)}\ 3\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 6\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 9\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 12\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 15$

Solution

Problem 13

Sunny runs at a steady rate, and Moonbeam runs $m$ times as fast, where $m$ is a number greater than 1. If Moonbeam gives Sunny a head start of $h$ meters, how many meters must Moonbeam run to overtake Sunny?