2014 AMC 10A 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.
What is
Solution:
We get that
Then and then finally,
Thus, C is the correct answer.
2.
Roy's cat eats of a can of cat food every morning and of a can of cat food every evening. Before feeding his cat on Monday morning, Roy opened a box containing cans of cat food. On what day of the week did the cat finish eating all the cat food in the box?
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Solution:
The cat eats cans of food each day. This means that it will take the cat days to finish all the foods. Note that this value is between and
This means that the cat will finish eating the food in days, which is days after Monday.
days after Monday is the same as days after Monday, and as such, the answer is Thursday.
Thus, C is the correct answer.
3.
Bridget bakes loaves of bread for her bakery. She sells half of them in the morning for $ 2.50 each. In the afternoon she sells two thirds of what she has left, and because they are not fresh, she charges only half price. In the late afternoon she sells the remaining loaves at a dollar each. Each loaf costs $ 0.75 for her to make. In dollars, what is her profit for the day?
Solution:
In the morning, she sells From this, she makes 24 \cdot $ 2.50 = $60. In the afternoon, she has loaves left, of which she sells for 16 \cdot \dfrac{$ 2.50}{2} = $20. Finally, she sells the remaining loaves for a dollar each, for a total of $ 8.
Her total revenue for the day is $ 60 + $ 20 + $ 8 = $ 88. The cost of all the loaves is 48 \cdot $ 0.75 = $ 36. Her total profits are then $88 - $36 = $52.
Thus, E is the correct answer.
4.
Walking down Jane Street, Ralph passed four houses in a row, each painted a different color. He passed the orange house before the red house, and he passed the blue house before the yellow house. The blue house was not next to the yellow house. How many orderings of the colored houses are possible?
Solution:
There are only two choices for the position of the yellow house, the third or fourth spot.
Case the yellow house is in the third spot
This forces the blue house to be the first, and this makes the orange house second and the red house fourth.
Case the yellow house is the last house
If the blue house is first, then the orange house is second, and the red house is third.
If the blue house is second, then the orange house is first, and the red house is second.
This gives us possible orderings for the houses that satisfy all the conditions.
Thus, B is the correct answer.
5.
On an algebra quiz, of the students scored points, scored points, scored points, and the rest scored points. What is the difference between the mean and median score of the students' scores on this quiz?
Solution:
We can assign the number of students as since this value will not affect the answer.
Then we have that students got points, students got got and got
We get that the mean is We also get that the median is since students got below a and the th and th students got
The difference between the two is
Thus, C is the correct answer.
6.
Suppose that cows give gallons of milk in days. At this rate, how many gallons of milk will cows give in days?
Solution:
We have to multiply by to account for the new number of cows.
We then have to multiply by to account for the new time that we have.
This gives us a final answer of
Thus, A is the correct answer.
7.
Nonzero real numbers and satisfy and How many of the following inequalities must be true?
(I)
(II)
(III)
(IV)
Solution:
Adding the two inequalities together gets us
which shows that (I) is correct.
One cannot subtract inequalities, which means that (II) is not necessarily true.
Consider and as a counter-example. This would give us
(III) is also not always true, since and might be negative numbers.
Let and Then and which shows that (III) is wrong.
The same thing occurs with (IV). Using the same values as above, we have and
This shows that (I) is the only true statement.
Thus, B is the correct answer.
8.
Which of the following numbers is a perfect square?
Solution:
Note that all of these answer choices are of the form We have that is square, so we need to be square as well.
This means that must be twice a perfect square. The only choice we have is which gives us
Thus, D is the correct answer.
9.
The two legs of a right triangle, which are altitudes, have lengths and How long is the third altitude of the triangle?
Solution:
We get that the area of the triangle is The length of the hypotenuse is
Dropping the altitude, from the vertex to the hypotenuse, we get that
Thus, C is the correct answer.
10.
Five positive consecutive integers starting with have average What is the average of consecutive integers that start with
Solution:
Note that the average of consecutive numbers starting with is
This means that the average of consecutive integers starting with is which we know is
Furthermore, the average of consecutive numbers starting with is
Thus, B is the correct answer.
11.
A customer who intends to purchase an appliance has three coupons, only one of which may be used:
Coupon off the listed price if the listed price is at least $50
Coupon $ 20 off the listed price if the listed price is at least $100
Coupon off the amount by which the listed price exceeds $100
For which of the following listed prices will coupon offer a greater price reduction than either coupon or coupon
$ 179.95
$ 199.95
$ 219.95
$ 239.95
$ 259.95
Solution:
Let us analyze what these coupons do to an arbitrary price,
Coupon changes this price to Coupon changes the price to Coupon changes the price to
We want and Solving both gives us
The only answer choice that works is $ 219.95.
Thus, C is the correct answer.
12.
A regular hexagon has side length Congruent arcs with radius are drawn with the center at each of the vertices, creating circular sectors as shown. The region inside the hexagon but outside the sectors is shaded as shown What is the area of the shaded region?
Solution:
Note that we can split the hexagon up into equilateral triangles each with side length
Recall that the area of an equilateral triangle with side length
This means that the area of the hexagon is
Since each interior angle of a regular hexagon is the six sectors form full circles.
This means that the area of all the sectors is
The area of the shaded region is then
Thus, C is the correct answer.
13.
Equilateral has side length and squares lie outside the triangle. What is the area of hexagon
Solution:
We can find the areas of all the individual pieces and then add them up together.
The area of the center equilateral triangle is
We have that the areas of all the squares is
We also have that
We also have that is isosceles, which means that we can rearrange the triangle by splitting it down the middle and recombining it into an equilateral triangle.
This means that the area of the three triangles is then
The total area is then
Thus, C is the correct answer.
14.
The -intercepts, and of two perpendicular lines intersecting at the point have a sum of zero. What is the area of
Solution:
We have that the -intercepts are an equal distance from the origin since their values sum to
Let this distance be We also have that that the distance from to the origin is since it is the median to the midpoint of the hypotenuse.
We then know that by the distance formula. We know the altitude from to is (it is just the -value of ).
We also know that which tells us that the area
Thus, D is the correct answer.
15.
David drives from his home to the airport to catch a flight. He drives miles in the first hour, but realizes that he will be hour late if he continues at this speed. He increases his speed by miles per hour for the rest of the way to the airport and arrives minutes early. How many miles is the airport from his home?
Solution:
Note that David drives at miles per hour after one hour. Let the distance he still needs to be drive be
Then, if the airport is miles from David's house, we know that: We solve this equation as follows: Therefore, the airport is miles from David's house.
Thus, C is the correct answer.
16.
In rectangle and points and are midpoints of and respectively. Point is the midpoint of What is the area of the shaded region?
Solution:
We can find the area of the shaded region by finding the area of and subtracting out the two unshaded triangles.
Extend so that it hits Let the intersection of and be
We have that Since we have that
This means that which means that the altitude of is the height of the rectangle.
The area of is then
The area of both unshaded triangles is then The area of is
The area of the shaded region is then
Thus, E is the correct answer.
17.
Three fair six-sided dice are rolled. What is the probability that the values shown on two of the dice sum to the value shown on the remaining die?
Solution:
Note that if one die is the sum of the other two dice, then it is strictly greater than the other two dice.
There are ways to choose which of the dice is the sum of the other two, which makes it the greatest.
This die cannot be since there is no way to sum two positive integers to get
There is a chance that this die is any of the other numbers.
There is way to get a sum of ways for for for and for
We have take these numbers of ways out of a total of possibilities. The desired probability is then
Thus, D is the correct answer.
18.
A square in the coordinate plane has vertices whose -coordinates are and What is the area of the square?
Solution:
Let the points be and
Note that the difference in -coordinates of and is
As the angles of a square are right, we have that the difference in -coordinates of and must be
Using the distance formula, we get that Squaring this tells us that the square's area is
Thus, B is the correct answer.
19.
Four cubes with edge lengths and are stacked as shown. What is the length of the portion of contained in the cube with edge length
Solution:
The distance between and with respect to the -axis is
Both the distances along the and -axes are
Then
Let the desired length be Then using similar triangles, we have that
Thus, A is the correct answer.
20.
The product where the second factor has digits, is an integer whose digits have a sum of What is
Solution:
To see if any pattern exists, we can test out small values of
We have that
From this, it is pretty safe to guess that for every increment of there is an extra added to the product. If you know how to use induction, you can prove that this pattern holds, but that's not necessary to solve the problem.
This means that for any the sum of the digits in the product is
Finally, we get
Thus, D is the correct answer.
21.
Positive integers and are such that the graphs of and intersect the -axis at the same point. What is the sum of all possible -coordinates of these points of intersection?
Solution:
Note that the lines intersect the -axis when This gives us and which when solved gives us and
Setting these equal to each other, we have
We know that and are positive, which means that the only pairs of values that satisfy the above equation are
Plugging these values back into the equations gives us -values of The sum of all these values is
Thus, E is the correct answer.
22.
In rectangle and Let be a point on such that What is
Solution:
To make working with easier, we can create a angle and apply the angle bisector theorem.
Let be the point on such that Applying the angle bisector theorem, we get
Using the special right triangle properties of a triangle, we have that and
We can substitute in some values to get
Using we have
This means that which gives us since is also a triangle.
Thus, E is the correct answer.
23.
A rectangular piece of paper whose length is times the width has area The paper is divided into three equal sections along the opposite lengths, and then a dotted line is drawn from the first divider to the second divider on the opposite side as shown. The paper is then folded flat along this dotted line to create a new shape with area What is the ratio
Solution:
WLOG, let the width of the rectangle be and the length be
Draw the line perpendicular to the midpoint of the fold, as shown below.
Note that and This tells us This means that is equilateral. Similarly, is equilateral. This makes the two triangles congruent.
This means that after the rectangle gets folded, this area will be overlapped. The area of the rectangle is The side length of this triangle is The area of it is then The area of the folded figure is then The desired ratio is then Thus, C is the correct answer.
24.
A sequence of natural numbers is constructed by listing the first then skipping one, listing the next skipping listing skipping and on the th iteration, listing and skipping The sequence begins What is the th number in the sequence?
Solution:
We can just count the number of skipped numbers and add that on to
Note that and
This means that there are skipped blocks of numbers in the sequence. We have to subtract since we start off by listing numbers and not
Then, so the desired answer is
Thus, A is the correct answer.
25.
The number is between and How many pairs of integers are there such that and
Solution:
Note that between any consecutive powers of there are either or powers of This is because
Consider the intervals from to
Since we know that these intervals must all together contain powers of
Let be the number of intervals that contain powers of and contain powers of
Then Multiplying the top equation by and subtracting it from the bottom equation gives us
Thus, B is the correct answer.