AMC 10 Step by Step
2008 AMC 10BProblem 23P21-25~5 minPrint

A rectangular floor measures aa by bb feet, where aa and bb are positive integers with b>ab > a . An artist paints a rectangle on the floor with the sides of the rectangle parallel to the sides of the floor. The unpainted part of the floor forms a border of width 1 foot around the painted rectangle and occupies half of the area of the entire floor. How many possibilities are there for the ordered pair (a,b)(a, b) ?

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Problem © Mathematical Association of America (MAA), American Mathematics Competitions. Reproduced for non-commercial educational use. Solution and commentary are original to this site.