Rocket City Math League

Mercury Test Solutions

1. Simply add the cost of buying eat set of items individually. 40 + 85 + 75 = 200 2. Subtract the 1 from the 4 to get (3). Then distribute the 4 to get 4 x 4 . Square the 3 to get 9. It should then look like this: 2[9 3 + 4 x 4] . Next, simplify everything in the parentheses to get 2[4 x + 2] . Last, distribute the 2 to obtain 8 x + 4 = 12 , so x = 1 .

2007-2008 Round 3
200 1

6 x x = 700 3. 2 700 , so x = 10 . x = 7
4. x = number of Figs y = number of Eigs One equation will be x +

10

y = 73 because the number of Figs and the number of Eigs equals 73. The second

equation is x 2 y = 10 because There are 10 more Fig students than twice the number of Eig students. To solve you can use the elimination method.

10 x + y = 73

10

( x 2 y = 10) so, if the number of Eigs equals 21, then the number of Figs is 52. 3 y = 63 y = 21
Thus, the number of Figs 2 Eigs = 52 2 21 = 10 . 5. If the digits of a number add up to 9, then the number is divisible by 9. So 4 + 3 + 3 + a + 8 = 18 if a = 0 , and 4 + 3 + 3 + a + 8 = 27 if a values of a.

= 9 . Therefore, there are 2 possible

6. The fastest way to solve this problem would be to raise 1.05 to the sixth power, multiply by 400 and then subtract 400 from the final answer. 1.05 3 400 400 = 63.05 when rounded to the nearest dollar amount. 7. This one is a bit tricky. The fastest way to solve it is to multiple the two equations by a constant. In this case the equation 4 s + 3d = 220 should be multiplied by 7 and subtracted from 11 times the equation 3s + 2d = 160 . This yields the desired 11s + 5d = 540 . Of course, solving for x and y is always an option as well. 8. With the discount, the spaceship was 2100 1632.50 = $467.50 , so we can set up an equation:

63.05

540

467.50 85 = , so 85 x = 46750 . Therefore, x = $550. x 100

9. Step one is to convert all of the rates to a common time. In this case, one hour works nicely. The rate at which pipes add water is 50 gal/hr (pipe 1) + 30gal/hr (pipe2) + 80 gal/hr (pipe 3) or 160 gallons per hour. The rate at which the drains remove water is -60gal/hr (drain 1) + -45gal/hr (drain 2) + -75 gal/hr (drain 3) or -180 gallons per hour. The total rate of the system is a net change of -20 gal/hr. So, in order to remove 8000 gallons, the rate of draining is -1/20, so it take -8000/(-1/20) hrs or 160000 hrs, which is 20000/3 days. 10.

550

20000 3

1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 4 4 2 2 x + 2 = x + x 2 + 2 x + 4 . If x + 2 = 4 , then x + 4 = 14 since you must x x x x x x 1 8 subtract out the middle two terms which equal 2. By repeating this pattern to find x + 8 , we obtain 194. x
rewritten as ( 2 3 5)(2 3)(7) , which can be rewritten as 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 . This expression is equal
2 3

194

11. The number of minutes in a week is equal to (60 minutes/hour)(24 hours/day)(7 days/week). To rewrite the number of minutes, it is important to look at the factors. (60 minutes/hour)(24 hours/day)(7 days/week) can be to

2 7! , which is of the form x y! , where x and y are prime numbers.

Therefore, x + y = 9 . 9

12. 1 1
6 5 4 3 2 21 15 10 6 3 56 35 20 10 4 126 70 35 15 5

1 1 1

126

1 1 1 1 This problem is an exercise in path-walking. The 4 5 grid represents the path that Bryan must walk upon. Since Bryan can only travel up and to the right, the number of paths from the bottom left corner of the gird to the top right corner has a finite number of paths. The numbers on the grid represent the number of ways that Bryan can travel to a particular vertex of the grid. For example, Bryan has exactly one way to travel from the corner where he starts to the vertex point directly above him. The number of paths of a vertex is found to be equal to the number of paths of the two vertices that are adjacent to that vertex. For example, in order for Bryan to end up on the vertex defined by the 2nd row and 2nd column, he has two paths by which he can travel. Bryan can travel over one and up one or he can travel up one and over one. Continuing with this strategy, the number of paths by which Bryan can travel is 126.
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