Problems

An iterative average of the numbers $1$ , $2$ , $3$ , $4$ , and $5$ is computed the following way. Arrange the five numbers in some order. Find the mean of the first two numbers, then find the mean of that with the third number, then the mean of that with the fourth number, and finally the mean of that with the fifth …

Chubby makes nonstandard checkerboards that have $31$ squares on each side. The checkerboards have a black square in every corner and alternate red and black squares along every row and column. How many black squares are there on such a checkerboard?

Three runners start running simultaneously from the same point on a $500$ -meter circular track. They each run clockwise around the course maintaining constant speeds of $4.4$ , $4.8$ , and $5.0$ meters per second. The runners stop once they are all together again somewhere on the circular course. How many seconds do …

Paula the painter and her two helpers each paint at constant, but different, rates. They always start at $8:00$ AM, and all three always take the same amount of time to eat lunch. On Monday the three of them painted 50% of a house, quitting at $4:00$ PM. On Tuesday, when Paula wasn't there, the two helpers painted only …

Let points $A = (0 ,0 ,0)$ , $B = (1, 0, 0)$ , $C = (0, 2, 0)$ , and $D = (0, 0, 3)$ . Points $E$ , $F$ , $G$ , and $H$ are midpoints of line segments $\overline{BD},\text{ } \overline{AB}, \text{ } \overline {AC},$ and $\overline{DC}$ respectively. What is the area of $EFGH$ ?

Each third-grade classroom at Pearl Creek Elementary has 18 students and 2 rabbits. How many more students than rabbits are there in all 4 of the third-grade classrooms?

A circle of radius 5 is inscribed in a rectangle as shown. The ratio of the length of the rectangle to its width is 2:1. What is the area of the rectangle?

The point in the xy-plane with coordinates $(1000, 2012)$ is reflected across the line $y = 2000$ . What are the coordinates of the reflected point?

When Ringo places his marbles into bags with 6 marbles per bag, he has 4 marbles left over. When Paul does the same with his marbles, he has 3 marbles left over. Ringo and Paul pool their marbles and place them into as many bags as possible, with 6 marbles per bag. How many marbles will be left over?

Anna enjoys dinner at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., where the sales tax on meals is 10%. She leaves a 15% tip on the price of her meal before the sales tax is added, and the tax is calculated on the pre-tip amount. She spends a total of 27.50 dollars for dinner. What is the cost of her dinner without tax or tip in …

In order to estimate the value of $x-y$ where $x$ and $y$ are real numbers with $x > y > 0$ , Xiaoxi rounded $x$ up by a small amount, rounded $y$ down by the same amount, and then subtracted her rounded values. Which of the following statements is necessarily correct?

For a science project, Sammy observed a chipmunk and a squirrel stashing acorns in holes. The chipmunk hid 3 acorns in each of the holes it dug. The squirrel hid 4 acorns in each of the holes it dug. They each hid the same number of acorns, although the squirrel needed 4 fewer holes. How many acorns did the chipmunk …

How many ordered pairs of positive integers $(M,N)$ satisfy the equation $\frac{M}{6}=\frac{6}{N}?$

A dessert chef prepares the dessert for every day of a week starting with Sunday. The dessert each day is either cake, pie, ice cream, or pudding. The same dessert may not be served two days in a row. There must be cake on Friday because of a birthday. How many different dessert menus for the week are possible?

Point $B$ is due east of point $A$ . Point $C$ is due north of point $B$ . The distance between points $A$ and $C$ is $10\sqrt 2$ , and $\angle BAC = 45^\circ$ . Point $D$ is $20$ meters due north of point $C$ . The distance $AD$ is between which two integers?

It takes Clea 60 seconds to walk down an escalator when it is not operating, and only 24 seconds to walk down the escalator when it is operating. How many seconds does it take Clea to ride down the operating escalator when she just stands on it?

Jesse cuts a circular paper disk of radius $12$ along two radii to form two sectors, the smaller having a central angle of $120$ degrees. He makes two circular cones, using each sector to form the lateral surface of a cone. What is the ratio of the volume of the smaller cone to that of the larger?

Suppose that one of every 500 people in a certain population has a particular disease, which displays no symptoms. A blood test is available for screening for this disease. For a person who has this disease, the test always turns out positive. For a person who does not have the disease, however, there is a $2\%$ false …

A cell phone plan costs $\$20$ each month, plus $5$ ¢ per text message sent, plus $10$ ¢ for each minute used over $30$ hours. In January Michelle sent $100$ text messages and talked for $30.5$ hours. How much did she have to pay?

A small bottle of shampoo can hold 35 milliliters of shampoo, whereas a large bottle can hold 500 milliliters of shampoo. Jasmine wants to buy the minimum number of small bottles necessary to completely fill a large bottle. How many bottles must she buy?

Suppose $[a\ b]$ denotes the average of $a$ and $b$ , and $\{a\ b\ c\}$ denotes the average of $a, b$ , and $c$ . What is $\{\{1\ 1\ 0\}\ [0\ 1]\ 0\}$ ?

Let $X$ and $Y$ be the following sums of arithmetic sequences: \begin{eqnarray} X &=& 10 + 12 + 14 + \cdots + 100, \\ Y &=& 12 + 14 + 16 + \cdots + 102. \end{eqnarray} What is the value of $Y - X$ ?

At an elementary school, the students in third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade run an average of $12$ , $15$ , and $10$ minutes per day, respectively. There are twice as many third graders as fourth graders, and twice as many fourth graders as fifth graders. What is the average number of minutes run per day by …

Which of the following equations does NOT have a solution?

Last summer 30% of the birds living on Town Lake were geese, 25% were swans, 10% were herons, and 35% were ducks. What percent of the birds that were not swans were geese?