The average of five numbers is 8. Two of the numbers are 2 and 5. The other three numbers are equal. What is the value of one of the three equal numbers?
The value of A is 7. Strategy: Start with the units column. From the units column, B + A = 2 or 12. If B + A = 2, then A is at most 2 and the final sum could not have three digits. Thus, B + A = 12. From the tens column, A + A + a "carry" of 1 is an odd number, so B must be odd. Strategy: Start with the tens column. In the tens column, A + A is at least 10, so A is at least 5. Test (A,B) for (5,7), (7,5), (8,4), and (9,3). A represents 7 and B represents 5. |
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March 2012
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