2014 AMC 8 Exam Solutions
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All of the real AMC 8 and AMC 10 problems in our complete solution collection are used with official permission of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA).
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1.
Harry and Terry are each told to calculate Harry gets the correct answer. Terry ignores the parentheses and calculates If Harry's answer is and Terry’s answer is what is
Solution:
Harry calculates it correctly as follows: Terry calculates it incorrectly as follows: Therefore:
Thus, A is the correct answer.
2.
Paul owes Paula cents and has a pocket full of -cent coins, -cent coins, and -cent coins that he can use to pay her. What is the difference between the largest and the smallest number of coins he can use to pay her?
Solution:
To use the most number of coins, Paul would have to use only -cent coins. This would require coins.
To use the least number of coins, Tom would use a -cent coin and a -cent coin, for a total of coins.
Therefore, the difference is
Thus, E is the correct answer.
3.
Isabella had a week to read a book for a school assignment. She read an average of pages per day for the first three days and an average of pages per day for the next three days. She then finished the book by reading pages on the last day. How many pages were in the book?
Solution:
During the first three days, Isabella read pages.
During the next three days, Isabella read pages.
Therefore, she read a total of pages.
Thus, B is the correct answer.
4.
The sum of two prime numbers is What is the product of these two prime numbers?
Solution:
The only for two numbers to add to an odd number is if one is even and the other is odd. The only even prime is so is one of the prime numbers.
Therefore, the other prime is and the product is
Thus, E is the correct answer.
5.
Margie's car can go miles on a gallon of gas, and gas currently costs \$\(4\) per gallon. How many miles can Margie drive on \(\$ 20\) worth of gas?
Solution:
With Margie can buy gallons of gas. With gallons of gas, Margie can travel miles.
Thus, C is the correct answer.
6.
Six rectangles each with a common base width of have lengths of and What is the sum of the areas of the six rectangles?
Solution:
To find the area of each rectangle we multiply by their respective lengths. This means that we can factor out the and we are left with the sum of the lengths. Adding together the lengths, we get
Therefore, the sum of the areas is
Thus, D is the correct answer.
7.
There are four more girls than boys in Ms. Raub's class of students. What is the ratio of number of girls to the number of boys in her class?
Solution:
Let be the number of boys in the class. This means that there are girls. As there are students, we know that: Therefore, the ratio of girls to boys is
Thus, B is the correct answer.
8.
Eleven members of the Middle School Math Club each paid the same amount for a guest speaker to talk about problem solving at their math club meeting. They paid their guest speaker What is the missing digit of this -digit number?
Solution:
Note that since people paid the same amount, then the resulting sum is divisible by Therefore, must be divisible by
Remember the divisibility rule for : if we take the difference of the sums of alternating digits, and this difference is divisible by the whole number is divisible by
For the aforementioned difference is The only way for this to be divisible by is if
Thus, D is the correct answer.
9.
In is a point on side such that and measures What is the degree measure of
Solution:
Since is isosceles, we know that This means that Therefore, Thus, D is the correct answer.
10.
The first AMC was given in and it has been given annually since that time. Samantha turned years old the year that she took the seventh AMC In what year was Samantha born?
Solution:
The seventh AMC 8 would have been administered years after the first one. Therefore, Samantha took it in
This means that Samantha was born years prior in
Thus, A is the correct answer.
11.
Jack wants to bike from his house to Jill's house, which is located three blocks east and two blocks north of Jack's house. After biking each block, Jack can continue either east or north, but he needs to avoid a dangerous intersection one block east and one block north of his house. In how many ways can he reach Jill's house by biking a total of five blocks?
Solution:
Allow the X is the location of the dangerous intersection.
Let E represent moving one block east and N represent moving one block north. To avoid the dangerous intersection, Jack must go either EE or NN first.
After these moves, there are only possible remaining options:
Thus, A is the correct answer.
12.
A magazine printed photos of three celebrities along with three photos of the celebrities as babies. The baby pictures did not identify the celebrities. Readers were asked to match each celebrity with the correct baby pictures. What is the probability that a reader guessing at random will match all three correctly?
Solution:
Notice that there are total ways that a reader could match the celebrities. However, only one of these is the correct matching. Therefore, the probability that the reader guesses it correctly is
Thus, B is the correct answer.
13.
If and are integers and is even, which of the following is impossible?
and are even
and are odd
is even
is odd
none of these are impossible
Solution:
Since is even, either and are both odd, or both even.
If they are both odd, then and are both odd. If they are both even, then and are both even. If and are both odd or even, their sum will always be even.
Therefore, is never odd.
Thus, D is the correct answer.
14.
Rectangle and right triangle have the same area. They are joined to form a trapezoid, as shown. What is
Solution:
The area of is
The area of Therefore: Then using the Pythagorean theorem we get that
Thus, B is the correct answer.
15.
The circumference of the circle with center is divided into equal arcs, marked the letters through as seen below. What is the number of degrees in the sum of the angles and
Solution:
Note that each of the arcs splits the circle evenly, so they each cover
spans of these arcs, so Similarly, We also know that both triangles are isosceles since two of their sides are radii. Therefore, and Therefore,
Thus, C is the correct answer.
16.
The "Middle School Eight" basketball conference has teams. Every season, each team plays every other conference team twice (home and away), and each team also plays games against non-conference opponents. What is the total number of games in a season involving the "Middle School Eight" teams?
Solution:
Each time plays non-conference games, totalling games.
We don't want to double count the conference game, so we can just count all the games every team played out home. Each team played home games, for a total of home games.
Therefore, the total number of games in a season is
Thus, B is the correct answer.
17.
George walks mile to school. He leaves home at the same time each day, walks at a steady speed of miles per hour, and arrives just as school begins.
Today he was distracted by the pleasant weather and walked the first mile at a speed of only miles per hour. At how many miles per hour must George run the last mile in order to arrive just as school begins today?
Solution:
If George normally walks mile at miles per hours, it will take him hours to walk to school.
Today, he walked miles at miles per hours, which means he walked for hours.
This means he has hours left to run to school. In order to run mile in hours, he must run at a speed of miles per hour.
Thus, B is the correct answer.
18.
Four children were born at City Hospital yesterday. Assume each child is equally likely to be a boy or a girl. Which of the following outcomes is most likely?
all are boys
all are girls
are girls and are boys
are of one gender and is one of the other gender
all of these outcomes are equally likely
Solution:
We can count the number of ways for each outcome to occur, and whichever has the most is the answer.
A: There is only one way for the children to all be boys.
B: There is only one way for the children to all be girls.
C: This scenario has possibilities:
D: This scenario has possibilities: (swapping G and B yields the other possibilities).
E: Clearly, this is not the case.
Thus, D is the correct answer.
19.
A cube with -inch edges is to be constructed from smaller cubes with -inch edges. Twenty-one of the cubes are colored red and are colored white.
If the -inch cube is constructed to have the smallest possible white surface area showing, what fraction of the surface area is white?
Solution:
Note that the interior cube has none of its faces showing, which means that this must be a white cube to minimize the white surface area. We should also place the other white cubes in the middle of every space to minimize the number of white faces showing.
This results in a white surface area of The total surface area is
Therefore, the fraction of white surface area is
Thus, A is the correct answer.
20.
Rectangle has sides and A circle of radius is centered at a circle of radius is centered at and a circle of radius is centered at Which of the following is closest to the area of the region inside the rectangle but outside all three circles?
Solution:
The three sectors inside the rectangle are all quarter-circles, with areas and and therefore their total area is
We can use as an approximation for Substituting this value in, we get The area of the rectangle is so the area outside the circles is (approximately)
Thus, B is the correct answer.
21.
The -digit numbers and are each multiples of Which of the following could be the value of
Solution:
For a number to be divisible by the sum of the digits has to be divisible by The sum of the digits of is so this has to be divisible by
Similarly for we get that divides which means that divides
From the first condition, we get that is less than a multiple of This means that must be more than a multiple of
Therefore, the only way that all these conditions can be satisfied is if
Thus, A is the correct answer.
22.
A -digit number is such that the product of the digits plus the sum of the digits is equal to the number. What is the units digit of the number?
Solution:
We can represent the number as where and are both digits. Then the condition implies that Simplifying this, we get which shows that since cannot equal
Thus, E is the correct answer.
23.
Three members of the Euclid Middle School girls' softball team had the following conversation.
Ashley: I just realized that our uniform numbers are all -digit primes.
Brittany : And the sum of your two uniform numbers is the date of my birthday earlier this month.
Caitlin: That's funny. The sum of your two uniform numbers is the date of my birthday later this month.
Ashley: And the sum of your two uniform numbers is today's date.
What number does Caitlin wear?
Solution:
Since there are no more than days in a month, the sum of any two girls' uniform numbers must be less than or equal to The only possible such pairs of -digit primes are This shows that the desired dates are and Caitlin's birthday should be the latest, which means that her uniform number must be the smallest.
Therefore, Caitlin's number is
Thus, A is the correct answer.
24.
One day the Beverage Barn sold cans of soda to customers, and every customer bought at least one can of soda. What is the maximum possible median number of cans of soda bought per customer on that day?
Solution:
We can order the number of cans bought by customer from least to greatest. In this ordering, the median is the average of the th and st customer.
To maximize this, we want to minimize the first purchases. To minimize them, we can set them all equal to If the th number is then there would be purchases greater than or equal to
This would cause the total number of cans sold to be at least which is too large. This forces the th purchase to be cans, which lowers the total by to the desired amount. This means that the st person bought cans, causing the median to be
Thus, C is the correct answer.
25.
A straight one-mile stretch of highway, feet wide, is closed. Robert rides his bike on a path composed of semicircles as shown. If he rides at miles per hour, how many hours will it take to cover the one-mile stretch?
Note: 1 mile = 5280 feet
Solution:
If we compare a straight portion to a semi-circular path, we can see that the semi-circular path is longer than the straight path due to the equation for circumference.
The diameter of each semi-circular path is feet, which evenly divides a mile, showing that there are an integer number of semi-circular paths. Therefore, the amount of time it takes Robert to ride along the semi-circular path is directly proportional to the length of the straight path.
The straight path would take Robert hours to ride. This means that it would take him hours to ride along the semi-circular path.
Thus, B is the correct answer.