2004 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 11

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Problem

All the students in an algebra class took a $100$-point test. Five students scored $100$, each student scored at least $60$, and the mean score was $76$. What is the smallest possible number of students in the class?

$\mathrm{(A)}\ 10 \qquad \mathrm{(B)}\ 11 \qquad \mathrm{(C)}\ 12 \qquad \mathrm{(D)}\ 13 \qquad \mathrm{(E)}\ 14$

Solution

Let the number of students be $n\geq 5$. Then the sum of their scores is at least $5\cdot 100 + (n-5)\cdot 60$. At the same time, we need to achieve the mean $76$, which is equivalent to achieving the sum $76n$.

Hence we get a necessary condition on $n$: we must have $5\cdot 100 + (n-5)\cdot 60 \leq 76n$. This can be simplified to $200 \leq 16n$. The smallest integer $n$ for which this is true is $n=13$.

To finish our solution, we now need to find one way how $13$ students could have scored on the test. We have $13\cdot 76 = 988$ points to divide among them. The five $100$s make $500$, hence we must divide the remaining $488$ points among the other $8$ students. This can be done e.g. by giving $61$ points to each of them.

Hence the smallest possible number of students is $\boxed{13}$.

See Also

2004 AMC 12B (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
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