1987 AHSME Problems/Problem 5

Problem

A student recorded the exact percentage frequency distribution for a set of measurements, as shown below. However, the student neglected to indicate $N$ , the total number of measurements. What is the smallest possible value of $N$ ?

$\begin{tabular}{c c}\text{measured value}&\text{percent frequency}\\ \hline 0 & 12.5\\ 1 & 0\\ 2 & 50\\ 3 & 25\\ 4 & 12.5\\ \hline\ & 100\\ \end{tabular}$

$\textbf{(A)}\ 5 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 8 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 16 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 25 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 50$

Solution

Note that $12.5\% = \frac{1}{8}$ , $25\% = \frac{1}{4}$ , and $50\% = \frac{1}{2}$ . Thus, since the frequencies must be integers, $N$ must be divisible by $2$ , $4$ , and $8$ (so that $\frac{N}{8}$ etc. are integers), or in other words, $N$ is divisible by $8$ . Thus the smallest possible value of $N$ is the smallest positive multiple of $8$ , which is $8$ itself, or $\boxed{\text{B}}$ .

1987 AHSME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 4	Followed by Problem 6
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30
All AHSME Problems and Solutions

The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions.

Page

Toolbox

Search

1987 AHSME Problems/Problem 5

Problem

Solution

See also