2004 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 2

Problem 2

In the expression $c\cdot a^b-d$ , the values of $a$ , $b$ , $c$ , and $d$ are 0, 1, 2, and 3, although not necessarily in that order. What is the maximum possible value of the result?

$(\mathrm {A}) 5\qquad (\mathrm {B}) 6 \qquad (\mathrm {C}) 8 \qquad (\mathrm {D}) 9 \qquad (\mathrm {E}) 10$

Solution

If $a=0$ or $c=0$ , the expression evaluates to $-d<0$ .
If $b=0$ , the expression evaluates to $c-d\leq 2$ .
Case $d=0$ remains.

In that case, we want to maximize $c\cdot a^b$ where $\{a,b,c\}=\{1,2,3\}$ . Trying out the six possibilities we get that the best one is $(a,b,c)=(3,2,1)$ , where $c\cdot a^b = 1\cdot 3^2 = \boxed{9} \Longrightarrow \mathrm{(D)}$ .

2004 AMC 12B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 1	Followed by Problem 3
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2004 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 2

Problem 2

Solution

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