2022 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 15

Revision as of 22:19, 29 January 2022 by Mathfun1000 (talk | contribs)

Problem

Laszlo went online to shop for black pepper and found thirty different black pepper options varying in weight and price, shown in the scatter plot below. In ounces, what is the weight of the pepper that offers the lowest price per ounce?

[asy] //diagram by pog size(5.5cm); usepackage("mathptmx"); defaultpen(mediumgray*0.5+gray*0.5+linewidth(0.63)); add(grid(6,6)); label(scale(0.7)*"$1$", (1,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$2$", (2,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$3$", (3,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$4$", (4,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$5$", (5,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$1$", (-0.3,1), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$2$", (-0.3,2), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$3$", (-0.3,3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$4$", (-0.3,4), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$5$", (-0.3,5), black); label(scale(0.75)*rotate(90)*"Price (dollars)", (-1,3.2), black); label(scale(0.75)*"Weight (ounces)", (3.2,-1), black); dot((1,1.2),black); dot((1,1.7),black); dot((1,2),black); dot((1,2.8),black);  dot((1.5,2.1),black); dot((1.5,3),black); dot((1.5,3.3),black); dot((1.5,3.75),black);  dot((2,2),black); dot((2,2.9),black); dot((2,3),black); dot((2,4),black); dot((2,4.35),black); dot((2,4.8),black);  dot((2.5,2.7),black); dot((2.5,3.7),black); dot((2.5,4.2),black); dot((2.5,4.4),black);  dot((3,2.5),black); dot((3,3.4),black); dot((3,4.2),black);  dot((3.5,3.8),black); dot((3.5,4.5),black); dot((3.5,4.8),black);  dot((4,3.9),black); dot((4,5.1),black);  dot((4.5,4.75),black); dot((4.5,5),black);  dot((5,4.5),black); dot((5,5),black); [/asy]

$\textbf{(A) }1\qquad\textbf{(B) }2\qquad\textbf{(C) }3\qquad\textbf{(D) }4\qquad\textbf{(E) }5$

Solution

[asy] //diagram by pog size(5.5cm); usepackage("mathptmx"); defaultpen(mediumgray*0.5+gray*0.5+linewidth(0.63)); add(grid(6,6)); label(scale(0.7)*"$1$", (1,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$2$", (2,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$3$", (3,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$4$", (4,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$5$", (5,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$1$", (-0.3,1), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$2$", (-0.3,2), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$3$", (-0.3,3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$4$", (-0.3,4), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$5$", (-0.3,5), black); label(scale(0.75)*rotate(90)*"Price (dollars)", (-1,3.2), black); label(scale(0.75)*"Weight (ounces)", (3.2,-1), black); draw((0,0)--(6,5),red);  dot((1,1.2),black); dot((1,1.7),black); dot((1,2),black); dot((1,2.8),black);  dot((1.5,2.1),black); dot((1.5,3),black); dot((1.5,3.3),black); dot((1.5,3.75),black);  dot((2,2),black); dot((2,2.9),black); dot((2,3),black); dot((2,4),black); dot((2,4.35),black); dot((2,4.8),black);  dot((2.5,2.7),black); dot((2.5,3.7),black); dot((2.5,4.2),black); dot((2.5,4.4),black);  dot((3,2.5),blue); dot((3,3.4),black); dot((3,4.2),black);  dot((3.5,3.8),black); dot((3.5,4.5),black); dot((3.5,4.8),black);  dot((4,3.9),black); dot((4,5.1),black);  dot((4.5,4.75),black); dot((4.5,5),black);  dot((5,4.5),black); dot((5,5),black); [/asy]

We are looking for a black point, that when connected to the origin, yields the lowest slope. The slope represents the price per ounce. It is clearly the blue point, which can be found visually. Also, it is the only one with a price per once significantly less than $1$. Finally, we see that the blue point is over the category with a weight of $\boxed{\textbf{(C) } 3}$ ounces.

~MathFun1000

Remark

By answer choice we can cross out the points that haven’t a entire number of weight in the diagram which gives us:

[asy] //diagram by pog size(5.5cm); usepackage("mathptmx"); defaultpen(mediumgray*0.5+gray*0.5+linewidth(0.63)); add(grid(6,6)); label(scale(0.7)*"$1$", (1,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$2$", (2,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$3$", (3,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$4$", (4,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$5$", (5,-0.3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$1$", (-0.3,1), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$2$", (-0.3,2), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$3$", (-0.3,3), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$4$", (-0.3,4), black); label(scale(0.7)*"$5$", (-0.3,5), black); label(scale(0.75)*rotate(90)*"Price (dollars)", (-1,3.2), black); label(scale(0.75)*"Weight (ounces)", (3.2,-1), black); dot((1,1.2),black); dot((1,1.7),black); dot((1,2),black); dot((1,2.8),black);  dot((2,2),black); dot((2,2.9),black); dot((2,3),black); dot((2,4),black); dot((2,4.35),black); dot((2,4.8),black);  dot((3,2.5),blue); dot((3,3.4),black); dot((3,4.2),black);  dot((4,3.9),black); dot((4,5.1),black);  dot((5,4.5),black); dot((5,5),black); [/asy]

~DairyQueenXD

See Also

2022 AMC 8 (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 14
Followed by
Problem 16
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 AJHSME/AMC 8 Problems and Solutions

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