2010 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 21

Problem 21

A palindrome between $1000$ and $10,000$ is chosen at random. What is the probability that it is divisible by $7$ ?

$\textbf{(A)}\ \dfrac{1}{10} \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ \dfrac{1}{9} \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ \dfrac{1}{7} \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ \dfrac{1}{6} \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ \dfrac{1}{5}$

Solution

It is known that the palindromes can be expressed as: $1000x+100y+10y+x$ (as it is a four digit palindrome it must be of the form $xyyx$ , where x and y are positive integers from [0,9]. Using the divisibility rules of 7, $100x+10y+y-2x$ = $98x+11y \equiv 0 \pmod 7$

The $98x$ is now irrelelvant

Thus we solve:

$11y \equiv 0 \pmod 7$

Which has two solutions: $0$ and $7$

There are thus, two options for $y$ out of the 10, so $2/10 = \boxed{\textbf{(E)}\ \frac15}$

2010 AMC 10B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 20	Followed by Problem 22
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2010 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 21

Problem 21

Solution

See also