1978 AHSME Problems/Problem 22

The following four statements, and only these are found on a card: $[asy] pair A,B,C,D,E,F,G; A=(0,1); B=(0,5); C=(11,5); D=(11,1); E=(0,4); F=(0,3); G=(0,2); draw(A--B--C--D--cycle); label("On this card exactly one statement is false.", B, SE); label("On this card exactly two statements are false.", E, SE); label("On this card exactly three statements are false.", F, SE); label("On this card exactly four statements are false.", G, SE); [/asy]$

(Assume each statement is either true or false.) Among them the number of false statements is exactly

$\textbf{(A)}\ 0 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 1 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 2 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 3 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 4$

Solution

There can be at most one true statement on the card, eliminating $\textbf{(A)}, \textbf{(B)},$ and $\textbf{(C)}$ . If there are $0$ true on the card, statement $4$ ("On this card exactly four statements are false") will be correct, causing a contradiction. Therefore, the answer is $\boxed{\textbf{(D) } 3}$ , since $3$ are false and only the third statement ("On this card exactly three statements are false") is correct.

Solution 2

If all of them are false, that would mean that the $4$ th one is false too. Therefore, $E$ is not the correct answer. If exactly $3$ of them are false, that would mean that only $1$ statement is true. This is correct since if only $1$ statement is true, the card that is true is the one that has $3$ of these statements are false. Therefore, our answer is $\boxed {(D)}$ .

~Arcticturn

1979 AHSME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 25	Followed by Problem 27
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1978 AHSME Problems/Problem 22

Solution

Solution 2

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