Number Theory SMC Questions

All the following questions were from the last 10 questions (i.e. Q16-25) of Senior Maths Challenge
papers from 2005-2012).

1. Positive integers x and y satisfy the equation √ x−√ 11=√ y .

x
What is the maximum possible value of ?
y

A 2 B 4 C 8 D 11 E 44

2. If x 2− px−q=0, where p and q are positive integers, which of the following could not
equal x 3?

A 4 x+3 B 8 x +5 C 8 x +7 D 10 x+ 3 E 26 x +5

3. All the digits of a number are different, the first digit is not zero, and the sum of the digits is
36. There are N ×7 ! such numbers. What is the value of N ?

A 72 B 97 C 104 D 107 E 128

4. Four integers a , b , c and d are such that:

abcd + abc+bcd + cda+dab+ ab+bc +cd +da+ ac+ bd+ a+b+ c+ d=2009
What is the value of a+ b+c +d ?

A 73 B 75 C 77 D 79 E 81

5. Andy and his younger cousin Alice both have their birthdays today. Remarkably, Andy is now
the same age as the sum of the digits of the year of his birth and the same is true of Alice.
How many years older than Alice is Andy?

A 10 B 12 C 14 D 16 E 18

6. How many prime numbers p are there such that 199 p +1 is a perfect square?

A 0 B 1 C 2 D 4 E 8

7. How many pairs of real numbers (x , y ) satisfy the equation ( x + y )2=( x+ 3 ) ( y−3 ) ?

A 0 B 1 C 2 D 4 E infinitely many

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 8. The length of the hypotenuse of a particular right-angled triangle is given by
√ 1+3+5+7+ …+25. The lengths of the other two sides are given by √ 1+3+5+…+ x and
√ 1+3+5+…+ y where x and y are positive integers.
What is the value of x + y ?

A 12 B 17 C 24 D 28 E 32

9. Damien wishes to find out if 457 is a prime number? In order to do this he needs to check
whether it is exactly divisible by some prime numbers. What is the smallest number of
possible prime number divisors that Damien needs to check before he can be sure that 457
is a prime number?

A 8 B 9 C 10 D 11 E 12

10. The year 1789 (when the French Revolution started) has three and no more than three
adjacent digits (7, 8 and 9) which are consecutive integers in increasing order. How many
years between 1000 and 9999 have this property?

A 130 B 142 C 151 D 169 E 180

11. Which positive integer n satisfies the following equation:

3 3 3
3 4 5 n −5 n −4 n −3
3
+ 3 + 3 + …+ 3 + 3 + 3 =60
n n n n n n

A 5 B 11 C 31 D 60 E 2006

12. X is a positive integer in which each digit is 1; that is, X is of the form 11111...
Give that every digit of the integer p X 2 +qX +r (where p , q and r are fixed integer
coefficients and p>0 ) is also 1, irrespective of the number of digits X , which of the
following is a possible value of q ?

A -2 B -1 C 0 D 1 E 2

2
n −9
13. What is the sum of the values of n for which both n and are integers?
n−1

A -8 B -4 C 0 D 4 E 8

14. Given that S= ( x +20 )+ ( x +21 ) + ( x +22 ) +…+ ( x +100 ), where x is a positive integer, what
is the smallest value of x such that S is a perfect square?

A 1 B 2 C 4 D 8 E 64

15. The factorial of n , written n !, is defined by n !=1× 2× 3 ×… × ( n−1 ) ×n. For how many
positive integer values of k less than 50 is it impossible to find a value of n such that n ! ends
in exactly k zeros?

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 A 0 B 5 C 8 D 9 E 10

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