2012 AMC 10A Problem 24
Attempt Problem 24 of the 2012 AMC 10A 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 2012 AMC 10A solutions, or check the answer key.
All problems are used with official legal permission of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA).
24.
Let and be positive integers with such that and What is
Answer: E
Solution:
Adding together the equations gives us
We can group terms and factor this to get
Note that every term on the left hand side is a nonnegative square integer. The only triple of squares that add to is and
We have that is the biggest difference among the three pairs. Therefore,
We cannot discern which of the other terms we can match with the other squares. Let us try and
Plugging in these values into the first equation gives us Simplifying yields Since is not divisible by we have that and
In the other case, and The first equation becomes or Hence
Thus, E is the correct answer.
Problem 24 in Other Years
2000 AMC 10 · 2001 AMC 10 · 2002 AMC 10A · 2002 AMC 10B · 2003 AMC 10A · 2003 AMC 10B · 2004 AMC 10A · 2004 AMC 10B · 2005 AMC 10A · 2005 AMC 10B · 2006 AMC 10A · 2006 AMC 10B · 2007 AMC 10A · 2007 AMC 10B · 2008 AMC 10A · 2008 AMC 10B · 2009 AMC 10A · 2009 AMC 10B · 2010 AMC 10A · 2010 AMC 10B · 2011 AMC 10A · 2011 AMC 10B · 2012 AMC 10B · 2013 AMC 10A · 2013 AMC 10B · 2014 AMC 10A · 2014 AMC 10B · 2015 AMC 10A · 2015 AMC 10B · 2016 AMC 10A · 2016 AMC 10B · 2017 AMC 10A · 2017 AMC 10B · 2018 AMC 10A · 2018 AMC 10B · 2019 AMC 10A · 2019 AMC 10B · 2020 AMC 10A · 2020 AMC 10B · 2021 AMC 10A Spring · 2021 AMC 10B Spring · 2021 AMC 10A Fall · 2021 AMC 10B Fall · 2022 AMC 10A · 2022 AMC 10B · 2023 AMC 10A · 2023 AMC 10B · 2024 AMC 10A · 2024 AMC 10B · 2025 AMC 10A · 2025 AMC 10B