2011 AMC 10B Problem 10

Attempt Problem 10 of the 2011 AMC 10B below, then check your answer against the professionally curated solution from LIVE by Po-Shen Loh. You can also try the full timed exam, view all 2011 AMC 10B solutions, or check the answer key.

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10.

Consider the set of numbers {1,10,102,103,,1010}.\{1, 10, 10^2, 10^3, \ldots, 10^{10}\}. The ratio of the largest element of the set to the sum of the other ten elements of the set is closest to which integer?

11

99

1010

1111

101 101

Answer: B
Concepts:geometric sequenceestimation
Difficulty rating: 1280
Solution:

The largest number is 1010.10^{10}. The other ten numbers have sum S=i=0910i=101019.S=\sum_{i=0}^9 10^i=\dfrac{10^{10}-1}{9}. Therefore their ratio is 1010S=9101010101,\dfrac{10^{10}}{S}=9\cdot\dfrac{10^{10}}{10^{10}-1}, which is just slightly greater than 99 and hence closest to 9.9.

Thus, the correct answer is B .

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