2012 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 12

Revision as of 20:31, 27 September 2019 by Justkeeprunning (talk | contribs)
The following problem is from both the 2012 AMC 12A #9 and 2012 AMC 10A #12, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem

A year is a leap year if and only if the year number is divisible by 400 (such as 2000) or is divisible by 4 but not 100 (such as 2012). The 200th anniversary of the birth of novelist Charles Dickens was celebrated on February 7, 2012, a Tuesday. On what day of the week was Dickens born?

$\textbf{(A)}\ \text{Friday}\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ \text{Saturday}\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \text{Sunday}\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ \text{Monday}\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ \text{Tuesday}$

Solution

In this solution we refer to moving to the left as decreasing the year or date number and moving to the right as increasing the year or date number. Every non-leap year we move to the left results in moving one day to the left because $365\equiv 1\pmod 7$. Every leap year we move to the left results in moving $2$ days to the left since $366\equiv 2\pmod 7$. A leap year is usually every four years, so 200 years would have $\frac{200}{4}$ = $50$ leap years, but the problem says that 1900 does not count as a leap year.

Therefore there would be 151 regular years and 49 leap years, so $1(151)+2(49)$ = $249$ days back. Since $249 = 4\ (\text{mod}\ 7)$, four days back from Tuesday would be $\boxed{\textbf{(A)}\ \text{Friday}}$.

See Also

2012 AMC 10A (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 11
Followed by
Problem 13
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
2012 AMC 12A (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 8
Followed by
Problem 10
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

The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions. AMC logo.png