Question

A frog located at $(x, y),$ with both $x$ and $y$ integers, makes successive jumps of length $5$ and always lands on points with integer coordinates. Suppose that the frog starts at $(0, 0)$ and ends at $(1, 0).$ What is the smallest possible number of jumps the frog makes?

$2$

$3$

$4$

$5$

$6$

Solution:

One jump cannot work, since $(0,0)$ and $(1,0)$ are only $1$ apart. Two jumps also fail: the intermediate point would be at distance $5$ from both, forcing it onto the perpendicular bisector $x=\dfrac12,$ which contains no lattice points.

Three jumps suffice, for example $(0,0)\to(3,4)\to(6,0)\to(1,0),$ where each step has length $5.$

Thus, the correct answer is B.

2011 AMC 12B Problem 11

Solution:

Problem 11 in Other Years