2010 AIME II Problem 13
Below is the professionally curated solution for Problem 13 of the 2010 AIME II, from LIVE by Po-Shen Loh. You can also try the full timed exam, view all 2010 AIME II solutions, or check the answer key.
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Difficulty rating: 3060
13.
The cards in a deck are numbered Alex, Blair, Corey, and Dylan each picks a card from the deck without replacement and with each card being equally likely to be picked. The two persons with lower numbered cards form a team, and the two persons with higher numbered cards form another team. Let be the probability that Alex and Dylan are on the same team, given that Alex picks one of the cards and and Dylan picks the other of these two cards. The minimum value of for which can be written as where and are relatively prime positive integers. Find
Solution:
Condition on Alex and Dylan holding and Blair and Corey then draw of the remaining cards, and Alex and Dylan are teammates exactly when both of those cards are below (Alex and Dylan are the high team) or both are above (the low team). There are cards below and cards above, so
The numerator is so becomes that is, Since is an integer, so or
The parabola is smallest at the admissible points closest to which is indeed at least Thus
Problem 13 in Other Years
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