2020 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 10
Zara has a collection of marbles: an Aggie, a Bumblebee, a Steelie, and a Tiger. She wants to display them in a row on a shelf, but does not want to put the Steelie and the Tiger next to one another. In how many ways can she do this?
Solution
Let the Aggie, Bumblebee, Steelie, and Tiger, be referred to by and
, respectively. If we ignore the constraint that
and
cannot be next to each other, we get a total of
ways to arrange the 4 marbles. We now simply have to subtract out the number of ways that
and
can be next to each other. If we place
and
next to each other in that order, then there are three places that we can place them, namely in the first two slots, in the second two slots, or in the last two slots (i.e.
). However, we could also have placed
and
in the opposite order (i.e.
). Thus there are 6 ways of placing
and
directly next to each other. Next, notice that for each of these placements, we have two empty slots for placing
and
. Specifically, we can place
in the first open slot and
in the second open slot or switch their order and place
in the first open slot and
in the second open slot. This gives us a total of
ways to place
and
next to each other. Subtracting this from the total number of arrangements gives us
total arrangements
.
We can also solve this problem directly by looking at the number of ways that we can place and
such that they are not directly next to each other. We see that there are three ways to place
and
in that order into the four slots so they are not next to each other as there are two ways in which they have one marble between them and one way in which they have two marbles between them (i.e.
). However, we could also have placed
and
in the opposite order (i.e.
). Thus there are 6 ways of placing
and
so that they are not next to each other. Next, notice that for each of these placements, we have two empty slots for placing
and
. Specifically, we can place
in the first open slot and
in the second open slot or switch their order and place
in the first open slot and
in the second open slot. This gives us a total of
ways to place
and
such that they are not next to each other
.
~jmansuri
See also
2020 AMC 8 (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 9 |
Followed by Problem 11 | |
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 AJHSME/AMC 8 Problems and Solutions |
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