2017 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 23
Contents
[hide]Problem
For certain real numbers , , and , the polynomial has three distinct roots, and each root of is also a root of the polynomial What is ?
Solution
Let and be the roots of . Let be the additional root of . Then from Vieta's formulas on the quadratic term of and the cubic term of , we obtain the following:
Thus .
Now applying Vieta's formulas on the constant term of , the linear term of , and the linear term of , we obtain:
Substituting for in the bottom equation and factoring the remainder of the expression, we obtain:
It follows that . But so
Now we can factor in terms of as
Then and
Hence .
Solution 2
Since all of the roots of are distinct and are roots of , and the degree of is one more than the degree of , we have that
for some number . By comparing coefficients, we see that . Thus,
Expanding and equating coefficients we get that
The third equation yields , and the first equation yields . So we have that
See Also
2017 AMC 10A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 23 |
Followed by Problem 25 | |
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 |
2017 AMC 12A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | |
Preceded by Problem 22 |
Followed by Problem 24 |
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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