2009 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 14
- The following problem is from both the 2009 AMC 10B #14 and 2009 AMC 12B #11, so both problems redirect to this page.
Problem
On Monday, Millie puts a quart of seeds, of which are millet, into a bird feeder. On each successive day she adds another quart of the same mix of seeds without removing any seeds that are left. Each day the birds eat only
of the millet in the feeder, but they eat all of the other seeds. On which day, just after Millie has placed the seeds, will the birds find that more than half the seeds in the feeder are millet?
Solution
On Monday, day 1, the birds find quart of millet in the feeder. On Tuesday they find
quarts of millet. On Wednesday, day 3, they find
quarts of millet. The number of quarts of millet they find on day
is
The birds always find
quart of other seeds, so more than half the seeds are millet if
, that is, when
. Because
and
, this will first occur on day
which is
. The answer is
.
Solution 2 (Brute Force)
Notice that, every day, there is always quarts of other seeds in the feeder, so we simply need to calculate when the quantity of millet seeds is greater than
quarts.
Every day that elapses, a fourth of the millet is taken away (eaten by birds), and then a fourth of a quart is added (by Millie). Thus, if
was the quantity of millet seeds the previous day, then on the next day, the quantity is
Brute forcing, we see that it takes
days. Thus, the answer is Friday.
~ aidan0626, lucaswujc, & Technodoggo
Video Solution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj3eCwD7Bms
~savannahsolver
See also
2009 AMC 10B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
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 |
2009 AMC 12B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | |
Preceded by Problem 10 |
Followed by Problem 12 |
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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