Help with SAT math problem

Test Preparation
1

<p>I was looking over some of the math problems from the last SAT I took and I just really have no idea how to go about doing this one. Help would be very appreciated!</p>

<p>Each of the 75 children in a line were assigned one of the integers from 1 through 75 by counting off in order. Then, standing in the same order, the children counted off in the opposite direction, so that the child who was assigned the number 75 the first time was assigned number 1 the second time. Which of the following is a pair of numbers assigned to the same child? </p>

<p>(A) 50 and 25
(B) 49 and 24
(C) 48 and 26
(D) 47 and 29
(E) 45 and 32</p>

2

<p>A B C D E …</p>

<p>1 2 3 4 5 …
75 74 73 72 71 …</p>

<p>The sum of the pair of numbers for each child is 76. See above for the first 5 children (A,B,C,D,E). So choice D.</p>

3

<p>It’s A my man. I am bad at explaining, especially via internet, but it’s basically 75-50=25, I don’t know if it helps, I am sorry :(</p>

4

<p>It’s D…each child’s numbers add up to 76. For example, (1,75), (2,74), (3,73), etc.</p>

5

<p>No it’s D. The two numbers must add up to 76. One person gets numbers 1 and 75. If you move along n people then these numbers become 1+n and 75-n. They still sum to 76.</p>

<p>Edit: rspence beat me to it</p>

6

<p>^^ trolllooollolol</p>

7

<p>Its D. they must add up to 76.</p>

8

<p>it took me about 5 min. to solve this problem. would i be screwed if i did this on the sat, should i have skipped it?</p>

9

<p>^You’d be pretty screwed.</p>

<p>The best way out is to simply recognize the pattern with (1,75), (2,74), etc. and then just see which answer choice has #s that add up to 76. Shouldn’t take more than 30 or 40 seconds.</p>

10

<p>As soon as you look at and recognize that you don’t have a better approach, you decide to abandon the problem, take a guess, or use brute force. In this case rapidly jotting down the numbers from 1 to 30 and then backwards under them the first few 75, 74, 73, and then counting back until you get down to 50 corresponding to 26 would get you the answer within 1.5 minutes or less.</p>

11

<p>Can anyone please tell me which month and year this SAT was from? And does anyone have the answer key for this same test?</p>

12

<p>@Dream4Life‌ In general, you should skip the hard problems or the ones where it is just not clicking, and come back to those problems at the end. Sinking 5 minutes on this problem in an actual exam is not a good idea, especially when you could be getting other easier problems right. And because all SAT problems carry the same number of points, it does not make sense to go overboard on any single problem. </p>