2017 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 5

Revision as of 15:28, 9 February 2017 by Lphillips17 (talk | contribs) (Alternate solution=)

Problem

At a gathering of $30$ people, there are $20$ people who all know each other and $10$ people who know no one. People who know each other hug, and people who do not know each other shake hands. How many handshakes occur?

$\textbf{(A)}\ 240\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 245\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 290\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 480\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 490$

Solution

Let the group of people who all know each other be $A$, and let the group of people who know no one be $B$. Handshakes occur between each pair $(a,b)$ such that $a\in A$ and $b\in B$, and between each pair of members in $B$. Thus, the answer is

$|A||B|+{|B|\choose 2} = 20\cdot 10+{10\choose 2} = 200+45 = \boxed{(B)=\ 245}$

Alternate solution

The number of handshakes will be equivalent to the difference between the number of total interactions and the number of hugs, which are ${30\choose 2}$ and ${20\choose 2}$, respectively. Thus the total amount of handshakes is ${30\choose 2} - {20\choose 2} = 435 - 190= \boxed{(B)=\ 245}$

See Also

2017 AMC 10A (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 7
Followed by
Problem 9
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 (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 4
Followed by
Problem 6
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