2019 AMC 10A Problems

Problem 1

What is the value of

Solution

The first part can be rewritten as The second part

is Adding these up gives

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 2

Problem

What is the hundreds digit of

Solution

The last three digits of for all are , because there are at least
three s and three s in its prime factorization. Because , the

answer is .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 3

Problem
Ana and Bonita were born on the same date in different years, years apart.
Last year Ana was times as old as Bonita. This year Ana's age is the square of
Bonita's age. What is

Solution 1
Let be the age of Ana and be the age of Bonita. Then,

and

Substituting the second equation into the first gives us

By using difference of squares and

dividing, Moreover,

The answer is

Solution 2 (Guess and Check)

Simple guess and check works. Start with all the square numbers
- , , , , , , etc. (probably stop at around since at that point it
wouldn't make sense). If Ana is , then Bonita is , so in the previous year, Ana's
age was times greater than Bonita's. If Ana is , then Bonita is , and Ana's
age was times greater than Bonita's in the previous year, as required. The
difference in the ages is .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 4

The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #4 and 2019 AMC
12A #3, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
A box contains red balls, green balls, yellow balls, blue
balls, white balls, and black balls. What is the minimum number of balls
that must be drawn from the box without replacement to guarantee that at
least balls of a single color will be drawn
 Solution
By choosing the maximum number of balls while getting of each color,
we could have chosen red balls, green balls, yellow
balls, blue balls, white balls, and black balls, for a total of balls.
Picking one more ball guarantees that we will get balls of a color -- either

red, green, or yellow. Thus the answer is .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 5

The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #5 and 2019 AMC
12A #4, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
What is the greatest number of consecutive integers whose sum is

Solution 1
We might at first think that the answer would be ,

because when . But note that the

problem says that they can be integers, not necessarily positive. Observe

also that every term in the sequence cancels

out except . Thus, the answer is, intuitively, integers.

Though impractical, a proof of maximality can proceed as follows: Let the
desired sequence of consecutive integers

be , where there are terms, and we

want to maximize . Then the sum of the terms in this sequence

is . Rearranging and factoring, this

reduces to . Since must divide , and

we know that is an attainable value of the sum, must be the
maximum.
 Solution 2
To maximize the number of integers, we need to make the average of them

as low as possible while still being positive. The average can be if the

middle two numbers are and , so the answer is .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 6

Problem
For how many of the following types of quadrilaterals does there exist a point in
the plane of the quadrilateral that is equidistant from all four vertices of the
quadrilateral?

§ a square
§ a rectangle that is not a square
§ a rhombus that is not a square
§ a parallelogram that is not a rectangle or a rhombus
§ an isosceles trapezoid that is not a parallelogram

Solution 1
This question is simply asking how many of the listed quadrilaterals are cyclic
(since the point equidistant from all four vertices would be the center of the
circumscribed circle). A square, a rectangle, and an isosceles trapezoid (that isn't
a parallelogram) are all cyclic, and the other two are not. Thus, the answer

is .

Solution 2
We can use a process of elimination. Going down the list, we can see a square
obviously works. A rectangle that is not a square works as well. Both rhombi and
parallelograms don't have a point that is equidistant, but isosceles trapezoids do

have such a point, so the answer is .

Solution 3
The perpendicular bisector of a line segment is the locus of all points that are
equidistant from the endpoints. The question then boils down to finding the
shapes where the perpendicular bisectors of the sides all intersect at a point. This
is true for a square, rectangle, and isosceles trapezoid, so the answer

is .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 7

The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #7 and 2019 AMC
12A #5, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem

Two lines with slopes and intersect at . What is the area of the

triangle enclosed by these two lines and the line

Solution 1
Let's first work out the slope-intercept form of all three

lines: and implies

so ,

while implies so .

Also, implies . Thus the lines

are and . Now we find

the intersection points between each of the lines with ,

which are and . Using the distance formula and then the
 Pythagorean Theorem, we see that we have an isosceles triangle with

base and height , whose area is .

Solution 2
Like in Solution 1, we determine the coordinates of the three vertices of the
triangle. Now, using the Shoelace Theorem, we can directly find that the area

is .

Solution 3
Like in the other solutions, solve the systems of equations to see that the

triangle's two other vertices are at and . Then apply Heron's

Formula: the semi-perimeter will be , so the area

reduces nicely to a difference of squares, making it .

Solution 4
Like in the other solutions, we find, either using algebra or simply by drawing
the lines on squared paper, that the three points of intersection

are , , and . We can now draw the bounding square

with vertices , , and , and deduce that the

triangle's area is

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 8

The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #8 and 2019 AMC
12A #6, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
The figure below shows line with a regular, infinite, recurring pattern of
squares and line segments.
 How many of the following four kinds of rigid motion transformations of the
plane in which this figure is drawn, other than the identity transformation, will
transform this figure into itself?

§ some rotation around a point of line

§ some translation in the direction parallel to line
§ the reflection across line
§ some reflection across a line perpendicular to line

Solution
Statement is true. A rotation about the point half way between an
up-facing square and a down-facing square will yield the same figure.
Statement is also true. A translation to the left or right will place the image
onto itself when the figures above and below the line realign (the figure goes
on infinitely in both directions).
Statement is false. A reflection across line will change the up-facing
squares to down-facing squares and vice versa.
Finally, statement is also false because it will cause the diagonal lines
extending from the squares to switch direction. Thus,

only statements are true.

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 9

Problem
What is the greatest three-digit positive integer for which the sum of the

first positive integers is a divisor of the product of the first positive

integers?
Solution 1

The sum of positive integers is , and we want this not to be a

divisor of (the product of the first positive integers). Notice that if and only
if were composite, all of its factors would be less than or equal to , so
would be able to cancel with these factors in , and thus the sum would be a
divisor. Hence in this case, must instead be prime. The greatest three-

digit integer that is prime is , so we subtract to get .

Solution 2
As in Solution 1, we deduce that must be prime. If we can't immediately
recall what the greatest three-digit prime is, we can instead use this result to
eliminate answer choices as possible values of . Choices , , and don't
work because is even, and choice does not work since is

divisible by . Thus, the correct answer must be .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 10

Problem
A rectangular floor that is feet wide and feet long is tiled with one-
foot square tiles. A bug walks from one corner to the opposite corner in a straight
line. Including the first and the last tile, how many tiles does the bug visit?

Solution 1
The number of tiles the bug visits is equal to plus the number of times it
crosses a horizontal or vertical line. As it must cross horizontal lines
and vertical lines, it must be that the bug visits a total

of squares.

Note: The general formula for this is , because it is the

number of vertical/horizontal lines crossed minus the number of corners crossed
(to avoid double counting). In this particular problem, it
was (since ), which is , but then you
add because the first tile and the last tile are counted, which in the general
formula are not counted.

Solution 2 (drawing)
We draw a diagram (optionally with grid paper and/or a ruler), then simply count
the number of tiles the path crosses. To make this slightly easier, we can divide
the full grid into sections, and just draw one of these feet by feet
sections.

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 11

Problem

How many positive integer divisors of are perfect squares or perfect cubes
(or both)?

Solution 1

Prime factorizing , we get . A perfect square must have even

powers of its prime factors, so our possible choices for our exponents of a perfect

square are for both and . This yields perfect

squares.
Perfect cubes must have multiples of for each of their prime factors' exponents,

so we have either , or for both and , which

yields perfect cubes, for a total of .

Subtracting the overcounted powers of ( , , ,

and ), we get .

Solution 2
Observe that . Now divide into cases:
Case 1: The factor is . Then we can have , , , , , or .
Case 2: The factor is . This is the same as Case 1.
Case 3: The factor is some combination of s and s.
This would be easy if we could just have any combination, as that would simply
give . However, we must pair the numbers that generate squares with the
numbers that generate squares and the same for cubes. In simpler terms, let's
organize our values for .
is a "square" because it would give a factor of this number that is a
perfect square. More generally, it is even.
is a "cube" because it would give a factor of this number that is a perfect
cube. More generally, it is a multiple of .
is a "square".
is interesting, since it's both a "square" and a "cube". Don't count this as
either because this would double-count, so we will count this in another case.
is a "square"
is a "cube".
Now let's consider subcases:
Subcase 1: The squares are with each other.
Since we have square terms, and they would pair with other square terms,
we get possibilities.
Subcase 2: The cubes are with each other.
Since we have cube terms, and they would pair with other cube terms, we
get possibilities.
Subcase 3: A number pairs with .
Since any number can pair with (as it gives both a square and a cube),
there would be possibilities. Remember however that there can be two different
bases ( and ), and they would produce different results. Thus, there are in
fact possibilities.

Finally, summing the cases gives .

While it appears that the line we drew comes very close to several points, we
know that since and are relatively prime, it will not actually pass through
any of these points, so the total number of squares crossed will be the same
regardless of which side we count. If we count from the diagram, we get

squares, giving a total of .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 12

The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #12 and 2019 AMC
12A #7, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
Melanie computes the mean , the median , and the modes of
the values that are the dates in the months of . Thus her data
consist of , ,..., , , , and .
Let be the median of the modes. Which of the following statements is true?

Solution 1
First of all, obviously has to be smaller than , since when
calculating , we must take into account the s, s, and s. So we
can eliminate choices and . Since there are total entries, the
median, , must be the one, at which point we note
that is , so has to be the median (because is

between and ). Now, the

mean, , must be smaller than , since there are many fewer s, s,
and s. is less than , because when calculating , we would

include , , and . Thus the answer is .

 Solution 2
As in Solution 1, we find that the median is . Then, looking at the

modes , we realize that even if we were to have of each, their

median would remain the same, being . As for the mean, we note that
the mean of the first is simply the same as the median of them, which
is . Hence, since we in fact have 's, 's, and 's, the mean has
to be higher than . On the other hand, since there are fewer 's,
's, and 's than the rest of the numbers, the mean has to be lower

than (the median). By comparing these values, the answer is .

Solution 3 (direct calculation)

We can solve this problem simply by carefully calculating each of the values,

which turn out to be , , and . Thus the

answer is .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 13

Problem
Let be an isosceles triangle
with and . Construct the circle with

diameter , and let and be the other intersection points of the circle

with the sides and , respectively. Let be the intersection of the

diagonals of the quadrilateral . What is the degree measure
of

Solution 1
Drawing it out, we see and are right angles, as they are
inscribed in a semicircle. Using the fact that it is an isosceles triangle, we
find . We can
find and by the triangle angle sum
on and .

Then, we take triangle , and

find

Solution 2
Alternatively, we could have used similar triangles. We start similarly to Solution
1.
Drawing it out, we see and are right angles, as they are
inscribed in a semicircle.
Therefore,
So, by AA Similarity,
since and .
Thus, we know
Finally, we
deduce
Solution 3 (outside angles)
Through the property of angles formed by intersecting chords, we find

that

Through the Outside Angles Theorem, we find

that

Adding the two equations gives

us

Since is the diameter, , and because is

isosceles and , we have .

Thus

Solution 4
Notice that if , then and must be .
Using cyclic quadrilateral properties (or the properties of a subtended arc), we
can find that .
Thus , and

so , which is .
Note: As in many elementary geometry problems, if you can't see how to solve it,
you could simply draw an accurate diagram and measure the angle using a
protractor as .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem

14
The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #14 and 2019 AMC
12A #8, so both problems redirect to this page.
For a set of four distinct lines in a plane, there are exactly distinct points
that lie on two or more of the lines. What is the sum of all possible values
of ?

Solution
It is possible to obtain , , , , , and points of intersection, as
demonstrated in the following
figures:

It is clear that the maximum number of possible intersections

is , since each pair of lines can intersect at most once. We now

prove that it is impossible to obtain two intersections.
We proceed by contradiction. Assume a configuration of four lines exists such
that there exist only two intersection points. Let these intersection points
be and . Consider two cases:
Case 1: No line passes through both and
Then, since an intersection is obtained by an intersection between at least
two lines, two lines pass through each of and . Then, since there can be
no additional intersections, no line that passes through can intersect a line
 that passes through , and so each line that passes through must be
parallel to every line that passes through . Then the two lines passing
through are parallel to each other by transitivity of parallelism, so they
coincide, contradiction.
Case 2: There is a line passing through and

Then there must be a line passing through , and a line passing

through . These lines must be parallel. The fourth line must pass through
either or . Without loss of generality, suppose passes through .

Then since and cannot coincide, they cannot be parallel.

Then and cannot be parallel either, so they intersect, contradiction.

All possibilities have been exhausted, and thus we can conclude that two
intersections is impossible. Our answer is given by the

sum .

2019 AMC 12A Problems/Problem

15
Problem
Positive real numbers and have the property

that and all four

terms on the left are positive integers, where log denotes the base 10 logarithm.
What is ?

Solution 1

Since all four terms on the left are positive integers, from , we know

that both has to be a perfect square and has to be a power of ten. The
same applies to for the same reason. Setting and to and ,

where and are the perfect squares, . By listing all

the perfect squares up to (as is larger than the largest possible sum
of and of from answer choice ), two of those perfect squares must
add up to one of the possible sums of and given from the answer choices
( , , , , or ).
Only a few possible sums are

seen: , , ,

, and . By testing each of these

(seeing whether ), only the

pair and work. Therefore, and are and ,

and our answer is .

Solution 2

Given that and are both integers, and must be in the

form and , respectively for some positive integers and . Note

that . By substituting for a and b, the equation

becomes . After multiplying the equation by

2 and completing the square with respect to and , the equation

becomes . Testing squares of positive

integers that add to , is the only option. Without loss of

generality, let and . Plugging in and to solve

for and gives us and .

Therefore, .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 16

 The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #16 and 2019 AMC
12A #10, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
The figure below shows circles of radius within a larger circle. All the
intersections occur at points of tangency. What is the area of the region,
shaded in the figure, inside the larger circle but outside all the circles of
radius

Solution 1
In the diagram above, notice that triangle and triangle are
congruent and equilateral with side length . We can see the radius of the
larger circle is two times the altitude of plus (the distance from
point to the edge of the circle). Using triangles,

we know the altitude is . Therefore, the radius of the larger circle

is .

The area of the larger circle is

thus , and the sum of the

areas of the smaller circles is , so the area of the dark region

is .

Solution 2
We can form an equilateral triangle with side length from the centers of
three of the unit circles tangent to the outer circle. The radius of the outer
circle is the circumradius of the triangle plus . By

using or , we get the radius as .

The shaded area is thus .

Solution 3
Like in Solution 2, we can form an equilateral triangle with side length from
the centers of three of the unit circles tangent to the outer circle. We can find

the height of this triangle to be . Then, we can form another equilateral

triangle from the centers of the second and third circles in the third row and
the center of the bottom circle with side length . The height of this triangle is

clearly . Therefore the diameter of the large circle is and the

radius is . The area of the large circle is

thus

.
The total area of the smaller circles is , so the shaded area

is .

Solution 4
 In the diagram above, and ,

so . The larger circle's radius

is , so the larger circle's area

is .
Now, subtracting the combined area of the smaller circles

gives .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 17

Problem
A child builds towers using identically shaped cubes of different color. How many
different towers with a height cubes can the child build with red
cubes, blue cubes, and green cubes? (One cube will be left out.)
Solution 1
Arranging eight cubes is the same as arranging the nine cubes first, and then
removing the last cube. In other words, there is a one-to-one correspondence
between every arrangement of nine cubes, and every actual valid arrangement.
Thus, we initially get . However, we have overcounted, because the red cubes
can be permuted to have the same overall arrangement, and the same applies
with the blue and green cubes. Thus, we have to divide by the ways to
arrange the red cubes, the ways to arrange the blue cubes, and the ways
to arrange the green cubes. Thus we

have different possible towers.

Note: This can be written more compactly

as

Solution 2
We can divide the problem into three cases, each representing one cube to be
excluded:
Case 1: The red cube is excluded. This gives us the problem of arranging one
red cube, three blue cubes, and four green cubes. The number opossible

arrangements is . Note that we do not need to multiply by the

number of red cubes because there is no way to distinguish between the first red
cube and the second.
Case 2: The blue cube is excluded. This gives us the problem of arranging two
red cubes, two blue cubes, and four green cubes. The number of possible

arrangements is .

Case 3: The green cube is excluded. This gives us the problem of arranging two
red cubes, three blue cubes, and three green cubes. The number of possible

arrangements is .
Adding up the individual cases from above gives the answer

as .

Solution 3 (guessing)
If you're running out of time, notice that choices , , and are way too
small, and choice would make no sense since it would simply be , as if
there were no restrictions. Thus, by educated guessing and elimination, the

correct answer must be .

Note: this strategy is not recommended!

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 18

The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #18 and 2019 AMC
12A #11, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
For some positive integer , the repeating base- representation of the

(base-ten) fraction is . What is ?

Solution 1

We can expand the fraction as

follows:

Notice that this is equivalent

to
By summing the geometric series and simplifying, we

have . Solving this quadratic equation (or simply testing

the answer choices) yields the answer .

Solution 2

Let . Therefore, .

From this, we see that ,

so .

Now, similar to in Solution 1, we can either test if is a multiple of 7

with the answer choices, or actually solve the quadratic, so that the answer

is .

Solution 3 (bash)
We can simply plug in all the answer choices as values of , and see which

one works. After lengthy calculations, this eventually gives us as

the answer.

Solution 4

Just as in Solution 1, we arrive at the equation .

We can now rewrite this as .

Notice that .

As is a prime, we therefore must have that one of and is

 divisible by . Now, checking each of the answer choices, this

gives .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 19

Problem
What is the least possible value

of where is a real
number?

Solution 1
Grouping the first and last terms and two middle terms

gives , which can be

simplified to . Noting that squares are

nonnegative, and verifying that for some real , the

answer is .

Solution 2

Let . Then the

expression becomes

We can now use the difference of two squares to get ,

and expand this to get .

Refactor this by completing the square to get , which has a

minimum value of . The answer is thus .

Solution 3 (calculus)
Similar to Solution 1, grouping the first and last terms and the middle terms, we

get .

Letting , we get the

expression . Now, we can find the critical points

of to minimize the function:

To minimize the result, we use . Hence, the minimum

is , so .
Note: We could also have used the result that minimum/maximum point of a

parabola occurs at .

Solution 4
The expression is negative when an odd number of the factors are negative. This
happens when or . Plugging

in or yields , which is very close to . Thus the

answer is .

Solution 5 (using the answer choices)

Using the answer choices, we see that choices , , and are impossible,

since can actually be negative (as

seen when e.g. ). Plug in to see that it

becomes , so round this to .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 20

The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #20 and 2019 AMC
12A #16, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem

The numbers are randomly placed into the squares of

a grid. Each square gets one number, and each of the numbers is
used once. What is the probability that the sum of the numbers in each row
and each column is odd?

Solution 1

Note that odd sums can only be formed by or so we

focus on placing the evens: we need to have each even be with another even
in each row/column. It can be seen that there are ways to do this. There
are then ways to permute the odd numbers, and ways to permute the

even numbers, thus giving the answer as .

Solution 2
By the Pigeonhole Principle, there must be at least one row with or more
odd numbers in it. Therefore, that row must contain odd numbers in order
to have an odd sum. The same thing can be done with the columns. Thus we
 simply have to choose one row and one column to be filled with odd numbers,
so the number of valid odd/even configurations (without regard to which
particular odd and even numbers are placed where) is . The

denominator will be , the total number of ways we could choose

which of the squares will contain an even number. Hence the answer

is

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem

21
The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #21 and 2019 AMC
12A #18, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
A sphere with center has radius . A triangle with sides of

length and is situated in space so that each of its sides is

tangent to the sphere. What is the distance between and the plane
determined by the triangle?

Diagram
3D: Plane

through triangle:

Solution 1
The triangle is placed on the sphere so that its three sides are tangent to the
sphere. The cross-section of the sphere created by the plane of the triangle is
also the incircle of the triangle. To find the inradius,

use . The area of the triangle

can be found by drawing an altitude from the vertex between sides with
length to the midpoint of the side with length . The Pythagorean
triple - - allows us easily to determine that the base is and the

height is . The formula can also be used to find the area

of the triangle as , while the semiperimeter is

simply . After plugging into the equation, we thus

get , so the inradius is . Now, let the distance
between and the triangle be . Choose a point on the incircle and denote
it by . The distance is , because it is just the radius of the sphere.
The distance from point to the center of the incircle is , because it is the
radius of the incircle. By using the Pythagorean Theorem, we thus

find .

Solution 2
As in Solution 1, we note that by the Pythagorean Theorem, the height of the
triangle is , and that the three sides of the triangle are tangent to the sphere,
so the circle in the cross-section of the sphere is the incenter of the triangle.
Recall that the inradius is the intersection of the angle bisectors. To find the
inradius of the incircle, we use the Angle Bisector

Theorem.

Since we know that (the height) is equal

to , (the inradius) is . From here, the problem can be solved in the

same way as in Solution 1. The answer is .

Solution 3 (similar triangles)

First, we label a few points:

We have that is a triangle, so, as in Solution

1, . From this, we know that . Since is

tangent to circle , we also know is a right
triangle. and share angle ,
so since they have two equal angles. Hence, by

this similarity, . Cross-multiplying, we get ,

which gives . We now take another cross section of the sphere,
perpendicular to the plane of the triangle.

Using the Pythagorean Theorem, we find that the distance from the center to

the plane is .

solution by woofle628 and GeniusKid1221

 Solution 4 (educated guess)
Test all the answer choices by plugging them into the

expression to find the inradius of the triangle. Seeing that

only gives an integer inradius, we pick .

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 22

The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #22 and 2019 AMC
12A #20, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
Real numbers between 0 and 1, inclusive, are chosen in the following
manner. A fair coin is flipped. If it lands heads, then it is flipped again and the
chosen number is 0 if the second flip is heads and 1 if the second flip is tails.
On the other hand, if the first coin flip is tails, then the number is chosen

uniformly at random from the closed interval . Two random

numbers and are chosen independently in this manner. What is the

probability that ?

Solution
There are several cases depending on what the first coin flip is when
determining and what the first coin flip is when determining .
The four cases are:
Case 1: is either or , and is either or .

Case 2: is either or , and is chosen from the interval .

Case 3: is is chosen from the interval , and is either or .

Case 4: is is chosen from the interval , and is also chosen from

the interval .

Each case has a chance of occurring (as it requires two coin flips).

For Case 1, we need and to be different. Therefore, the probability for

success in Case 1 is .

For Case 2, if is 0, we need to be in the interval . If is 1, we

need to be in the interval . Regardless of what is, the

probability for success for Case 2 is .

By symmetry, Case 3 has the same success rate as Case 2.

For Case 4, we must use geometric probability because there are an infinite

number of pairs that can be selected, whether they satisfy the

inequality or not. Graphing gives us the following picture

where the shaded area is the set of all the points that fulfill the inequality:
 The shaded area is , which means the probability for success for case 4

is (since the total area of the bounding square, containing all possible
pairs, is ).
Adding up the success rates from each case, we get:

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 23

Problem
Travis has to babysit the terrible Thompson triplets. Knowing that they love big
numbers, Travis devises a counting game for them. First Tadd will say the
number , then Todd must say the next two numbers ( and ), then Tucker
must say the next three numbers ( , , ), then Tadd must say the next four
numbers ( , , , ), and the process continues to rotate through the three
children in order, each saying one more number than the previous child did, until

the number is reached. What is the th number said by Tadd?

Solution 1
Define a round as one complete rotation through each of the three children.
We create a table to keep track of what numbers each child says for each round.

Notice that at the end of the , the last number said is the triangular
number.
Tadd says number in round 1, numbers in round 2, numbers in round 3,
and in general numbers in round . At the end of round , the number
of numbers Tadd has said so far

is , by the arithmetic
series sum formula.
We therefore want the smallest positive integer such

that . The value of will tell us in which round Tadd

says his number. Through guess and check (or by actually solving the
quadratic inequality), .

Now, using our formula , Tadd says numbers in the first 36

rounds, so we are looking for the number Tadd

says in the round.

We found that the last number said at the very end of the round is

the triangular number. For , the triangular number

is . Thus the answer is .

Solution 2
Firstly, as in Solution 1, we list how many words Tadd says, Todd says, and
Tucker says in each round.

Tadd:

Todd:

Tucker:

We can find a general formula for the number of numbers each of the kids say
after the th round. For Tadd, we can either use the arithmetic series sum
formula (like in Solution 1) or standard summation results to
get

.
Now, to find the number of rotations Tadd and his siblings go through before
Tadd says his th word, we know the

inequality must be satisfied, and testing numbers gives

the maximum integer value of as .
The next main insight, in order to simplify the computation process, is to notice
that the th number Tadd says is simply the number of numbers Todd and
Tucker say plus the Tadd says, which will be the answer since Tadd goes
first.
Carrying out the calculation thus becomes quite simple:
At this point, we can note that the last digit of the answer is , which

gives . (Completing the calculation will confirm the answer, if you

have time.)

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 24

Problem
Let , , and be the distinct roots of the

polynomial . It is given that there exist real

numbers , , and such

that for

all . What is ?

Solution 1
Multiplying both sides

by yields

As this is a polynomial identity, and it is true for infinitely many , it must be true
for all (since a polynomial with infinitely many roots must in fact be the constant
polynomial ). This means we can plug in to find

that . Similarly, we can

find and . Summing

them up, we get

that By Vieta's
Formulas, we know
that
 a

nd . Thus the answer

is .
Note: This process of substituting in the 'forbidden' values in the original identity
is a standard technique for partial fraction decomposition, as taught in calculus
classes.

Solution 2 (limits)

Multiplying by on both sides, we find

that
As , notice that the and terms on the right will cancel out and we

will be left with only . Hence, ,

which by L'Hospital's rule

becomes . We can
reason similarly to find and . Adding up the reciprocals and using Vieta's
Formulas, we have
that

2019 AMC 10A Problems/Problem

25
The following problem is from both the 2019 AMC 10A #25 and 2019 AMC
12A #24, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem
For how many integers between and , inclusive, is an
integer? (Recall that .)

Solution
The main insight is that

is always an integer. This is true because it is precisely the number of ways to

split up objects into unordered groups of size . Thus,

is an integer if , or in other words, if . This condition

is false precisely when or is prime, by Wilson's Theorem. There
are primes between and , inclusive, so there are 15 + 1 = 16 terms
for which

is potentially not an integer. It can be easily verified that the above expression
is not an integer for as there are more factors of 2 in the denominator
than the numerator. Similarly, it can be verified that the above expression is
not an integer for any prime , as there are more factors of p in the
denominator than the numerator. Thus all 16 values of n make the expression

not an integer and the answer is