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2005 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 13

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Problem

The regular 5-point star is drawn and in each vertex, there is a number. Each and are chosen such that all 5 of them came from set . Each letter is a different number (so one possible way is A = 3, B = 5, C = 6, D = 7, E = 9). Let be the sum of the numbers on and , and so forth. If and form an arithmetic sequence (not necessarily in increasing order), find the value of .

(\mathrm {A}) \ 9 \qquad (\mathrm {B}) \ 10 \qquad (\mathrm {C})\ 11 \qquad (\mathrm {D}) \ 12 \qquad (\mathrm {E})\ 13

Solution

AB + BC + CD + DE + EA = 2(A+B+C+D+E). The sum will always be , so the arithmetic sequence has a sum of . Since is the middle term, it must be the average of the five numbers, of \frac{60}{5} = 12 \Longrightarrow \mathrm{(D)}.

See also

2005 AMC 12A (Problems)
Preceded by
Problem 12
Followed by
Problem 14
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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