What is the highest grade that Roma can get? 30 students took part in the Mathematics Olympiad. They were offered 8 problems. First, the jury checked the participants' work, giving each problem a "solved" or "not solved" grade. Then, for each task, its cost is determined - a natural number, which is equal to the number of participants who did not solve it. The total cost of solved problems by a student makes up his overall grade. It turned out that the boy Roma received a grade lower than everyone else. What is the highest grade he could get?

katdoringlo

katdoringlo

Answered question

2022-09-06

What is the highest grade that Roma can get?
30 students took part in the Mathematics Olympiad. They were offered 8 problems. First, the jury checked the participants' work, giving each problem a "solved" or "not solved" grade. Then, for each task, its cost is determined - a natural number, which is equal to the number of participants who did not solve it. The total cost of solved problems by a student makes up his overall grade. It turned out that the boy Roma received a grade lower than everyone else. What is the highest grade he could get?
I got 55; 4 problems, from 13 to 17 points. Found this number by brute force. Is it correct?

Answer & Explanation

Monserrat Ellison

Monserrat Ellison

Beginner2022-09-07Added 22 answers

Step 1
Observe that if a question is solved by k students, then the total score obtained by all 30 students for that question is k ( 30 k ). This is maximised when k = 15, so the maximum total score of all 30 students for all 8 questions are 8 15 ( 30 15 ) = 1800.
We know that Roma's score must be less than 60. Otherwise, the total score of the 30 students would be at least
60 + 29 61 > 1800
which contradicts the fact that the total score is at most 1800.
Claim. Roma's score cannot be 59.
Proof. Suppose Roma's score is 59. Then all 29 other students must get at least 60, which means the total score is at least 59 + 29 60 = 1799.
- If the total score is 1799, then there must be one question that is solved by exactly 14 or 16 students, while each of the other seven questions is solved by exactly 15 students. (Why?) Let us consider the question that is not solved by exactly 15 students.
- If that question is solved by exactly 14 students, then the 30 students in total solve 14 + 7 15 = 119 questions. So, at least one student solves 3 questions or fewer. Since each question awards either 15 or 16 points, this student's score is at most 48. This contradicts the assumption that Roma's 59 points is the lowest score.
- If that question is solved by exactly 16 students, then the 30 students in total solve 16 + 7 15 = 121 questions. So, at least one student solves 5 questions or more. Since each question awards either 15 or 14 points, this student's score is at least 70. As a consequence, the total score of all 30 students is at least
59 + 70 + 28 60 = 1809.
This contradicts the assumption that the total score is 1799.
- If the total score is 1800, then each of the eight questions is solved by exactly 15 students. (Why?) So, each question is worth 15 points, and hence, each student's score is a multiple of 15. But Roma's score is 59, which is not a multiple of 15.
We can therefore conclude that Roma's score cannot be 59. □
Step 2
Now, we prove that Roma can get 58 points.
Consider the following scenario:
- Roma solves questions 3, 4, 5, 6,
- One student solves questions 3, 4, 7, 8,
- One student solves questions 1, 2, 4, 5,
- 13 students solve questions 1, 2, 3, 4,
- 14 students solve questions 5, 6, 7, 8.
The number of points for the eight questions are 16, 16, 15, 14, 14, 15, 15, and 15 in that order. So,
- Roma gets 15 + 14 + 14 + 15 = 58 points,
- The one student who solves questions 3, 4, 7, 8 gets 15 + 14 + 15 + 15 = 59 points,
- The one student who solves questions 1, 2, 4, 5 gets 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 = 60 points,
- The 13 students who solve questions 1, 2, 3, 4 get 16 + 16 + 15 + 14 = 61 points each,
- The 14 students who solve questions 5, 6, 7, 8 get 14 + 15 + 15 + 15 = 59 points each.
So, in this scenario, Roma gets 58 points while the others get at least 59 points.<

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