2022 AMC 10B Problem 10

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10.

Camila writes down five positive integers. The unique mode of these integers is 22 greater than their median, and the median is 22 greater than their arithmetic mean. What is the least possible value for the mode?

 5 \ 5

 7 \ 7

 9 \ 9

 11 \ 11

 13 \ 13

Answer: D
Concepts:meanmedian (data)modeoptimization
Difficulty rating: 1660
Solution:

Let the integers in increasing order be a,b,c,d,e.a,b,c,d,e. The median is c,c, and the unique mode is c+2.c+2.

Because the mode is larger than the median and is unique, the last two entries must both be c+2,c+2, so the list is a,b,c,c+2,c+2.a,b,c,c+2,c+2.

The mean is c2,c-2, so a+b+c+(c+2)+(c+2)5=c2. \begin{aligned} &\frac{a+b+c+(c+2)+(c+2)}{5} \\ &\quad = c-2. \end{aligned} Hence a+b+3c+4=5c10,a+b+3c+4=5c-10, so a+b=2c14.a+b=2c-14.

To keep the mode unique, aa and bb must be distinct positive integers, both less than c.c. Since a+b=2c14a+b=2c-14 is even, the smallest such sum is 1+3=4,1+3=4, so 2c144,2c-14\ge4, giving c9.c\ge9.

The smallest possible mode is therefore c+2=11,c+2=11, and it is attainable with 1,3,9,11,11.1,3,9,11,11.

Thus, the answer is D .

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