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2000 AMC 10 Problems/Problem 12

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Problem

Figures 0, 1, 2, and 3 consist of 1, 5, 13, and 25 nonoverlapping unit squares, respectively. If the pattern were continued, how many nonoverlapping unit squares would there be in figure 100?

unitsize(8);draw((0,0)--(1,0)--(1,1)--(0,1)--cycle);draw((9,0)--(10,0)--(10,3)--(9,3)--cycle);draw((8,1)--(11,1)--(11,2)--(8,...


\mathrm{(A)}\ 10401 \qquad\mathrm{(B)}\ 19801 \qquad\mathrm{(C)}\ 20201 \qquad\mathrm{(D)}\ 39801 \qquad\mathrm{(E)}\ 40801

Solution

Solution 1

We have a recursion:

A_n=A_{n-1}+4n.

I.E. we add increasing multiples of 4 each time we go up a figure.

So, to go from Figure 0 to 100, we add

4 \cdot 1+4 \cdot 2+...+4 \cdot 99+4\cdot 100=4 \cdot 5050=20200.

20201

\boxed{\text{C}}

Solution 2

We can divide up figure n to get the sum of the sum of the first n+1 odd numbers and the sum of the first n odd numbers. If you do not see this, here is the example for n=3:

draw((3,0)--(4,0)--(4,7)--(3,7)--cycle);draw((0,3)--(7,3)--(7,4)--(0,4)--cycle);draw((2,1)--(5,1)--(5,6)--(2,6)--cycle);draw(...

The sum of the first n odd numbers is n^2, so for figure n, there are (n+1)^2+n^2 unit squares. We plug in n=100 to get 20201, which is choice \boxed{\text{C}}

See Also

2000 AMC 10 (ProblemsResources)
Preceded by
Problem 11
Followed by
Problem 13
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
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