AMC 10 Step by Step
2024 AMC 10BProblem 16P16-20~5 minPrint

Jerry likes to play with numbers. One day, he wrote all the integers from 11 to 20242024 on the whiteboard. Then he repeatedly chose four numbers on the whiteboard, erased them, and replaced them by either their sum or their product. (For example, Jerry's first step might have been to erase 11 , 22 , 33 , and 55 , and then write either 1111 , their sum, or 3030 , their product, on the whiteboard.) After repeatedly performing this operation, Jerry noticed that all the remaining numbers on the whiteboard were odd. What is the maximum possible number of integers on the whiteboard at that time?

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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.