2019 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 8

Problem

Let $f(x) = x^{2}(1-x)^{2}$ . What is the value of the sum $f\left(\frac{1}{2019} \right)-f \left(\frac{2}{2019} \right)+f \left(\frac{3}{2019} \right)-f \left(\frac{4}{2019} \right)+\cdots$

$+ f \left(\frac{2017}{2019} \right) - f \left(\frac{2018}{2019} \right)$ ?

$\textbf{(A) }0\qquad\textbf{(B) }\frac{1}{2019^{4}}\qquad\textbf{(C) }\frac{2018^{2}}{2019^{4}}\qquad\textbf{(D) }\frac{2020^{2}}{2019^{4}}\qquad\textbf{(E) }1$

Solution

First, note that $f(x) = f(1-x)$ . We can see this since $f(x) = x^2(1-x)^2 = (1-x)^2x^2 = f(1-x)$ From this, we regroup the terms accordingly: $\left( f \left(\frac{1}{2019} \right) - f \left(\frac{2018}{2019} \right) \right) + \left( f \left(\frac{2}{2019} \right) - f \left(\frac{2017}{2019} \right) \right) + \cdots + \left( f \left(\frac{1009}{2019} \right) - f \left(\frac{1010}{2019} \right) \right)$ $= \left( f \left(\frac{1}{2019} \right) - f \left(\frac{1}{2019} \right) \right) + \left( f \left(\frac{2}{2019} \right) - f \left(\frac{2}{2019} \right) \right) + \cdots + \left( f \left(\frac{1009}{2019} \right) - f \left(\frac{1009}{2019} \right) \right)$ Now, it is clear that all the terms will cancel out, and so the answer is $\boxed{\text{(A) 0}}$ .

2019 AMC 12B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
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 12 Problems and Solutions

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2019 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 8

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