2017 AMC 12A Problems and Solutions

Problem 1
Pablo buys popsicles for his friends. The store sells single popsicles for $1 each,
3-popsicle boxes for $2 each, and 5-popsicle boxes for $3. What is the greatest number of
popsicles that Pablo can buy with $8?
（A）8 （B）11 （C）12 （D）13 （E）15

Problem 2
The sum of two nonzero real numbers is 4 times their product. What is the sum of the
reciprocals of the two numbers?
（A）1 （B）2 （C）4 （D）8 （E）12

Problem 3
Ms. Carroll promised that anyone who got all the multiple choice questions right on the
upcoming exam would receive an A on the exam. Which of these statements necessarily
follows logically?

Problem 4
Jerry and Silvia wanted to go from the southwest corner of a square field to the northeast
corner. Jerry walked due east and then due north to reach the goal, but Silvia headed
northeast and reached the goal walking in a straight line. Which of the following is closest
to how much shorter Silvia's trip was, compared to Jerry's trip?
（A）30% （B）40% （C）50% （D）60% （E）70%

Problem 5
At a gathering of 30 people, there are 20 people who all know each other and 10 people
who know no one. People who know each other hug, and people who do not know each
other shake hands. How many handshakes occur?
（A）240 （B）245 （C）250 （D）480 （E）490

Problem 6
Joy has 30 thin rods, one each of every integer length from 1 cm through 30 cm. She
places the rods with lengths cm, cm, and cm on a table. She then wants to choose
a fourth rod that she can put with these three to form a quadrilateral with positive area.
How many of the remaining rods can she choose as the fourth rod?
（A）16 （B）17 （C）18 （D）19 （E）20

Problem 7
Define a function on the positive integers recursively
by , if is even, and if is odd
and greater than 1. What is ?
（A）2017 （B）2018 （C）4034 （D）4035 （E）4036

Problem 8
The region consisting of all points in three-dimensional space within units of line
segment has volume . What is the length ?
（A）6 （B）12 （C）18 （D）20 （E）24

Problem 9

Let be a set of points in the coordinate plane such that two of the three

quantities and are equal and the third of the three quantities is no
greater than this common value. Which of the following is a correct description for

Problem 10
Chloé chooses a real number uniformly at random from the interval .
Independently, Laurent chooses a real number uniformly at random from the
interval . What is the probability that Laurent's number is greater than Chloé's
number?

Problem 11
Claire adds the degree measures of the interior angles of a convex polygon and arrives at
a sum of 2017. She then discovers that she forgot to include one angle. What is the
degree measure of the forgotten angle?
（A）37 （B）63 （C）117 （D）143 （E）163

Problem 12
There are 10 horses, named Horse 1, Horse 2, , Horse 10. They get their names from
how many minutes it takes them to run one lap around a circular race track: Horse runs
one lap in exactly minutes. At time 0 all the horses are together at the starting point on
the track. The horses start running in the same direction, and they keep running around
the circular track at their constant speeds. The least time , in minutes, at which all
10 horses will again simultaneously be at the starting point is . Let be
the least time, in minutes, such that at least 5 of the horses are again at the starting point.
What is the sum of the digits of ?
（A）2 （B）3 （C）4 （D）5 （E）6

Problem 13
Driving at a constant speed, Sharon usually takes 180 minutes to drive from her house to
her mother's house. One day Sharon begins the drive at her usual speed, but after
driving 1/3 of the way, she hits a bad snowstorm and reduces her speed by 20 miles per
hour. This time the trip takes her a total of 278
6 minutes. How many miles is the drive from
Sharon's house to her mother's house?
（A）132 （B）135 （C）138 （D）141 （E）144

Problem 14
Alice refuses to sit next to either Bob or Carla. Derek refuses to sit next to Eric. How many
ways are there for the five of them to sit in a row of 5 chairs under these conditions?
（A）12 （B）16 （C）28 （D）32 （E）40

Problem 15
Let , using radian measure for the variable . In what
interval does the smallest positive value of for which lie?
（A）(0,1) （B）(1,2) （C）(2,3) （D）(3,4) （E）(4,5)

Problem 16
In the figure below, semicircles with centers at and and with radii 2 and 1,
respectively, are drawn in the interior of, and sharing bases with, a semicircle with
diameter . The two smaller semicircles are externally tangent to each other and
internally tangent to the largest semicircle. A circle centered at is drawn externally
tangent to the two smaller semicircles and internally tangent to the largest semicircle.
What is the radius of the circle centered at ?

Problem 17
There are 24 different complex numbers such that . For how many of these
is a real number?
（A）0 （B）4 （C）6 （D）12 （E）24

Problem 18
Let S(n) equal the sum of the digits of positive integer . For example, S(1507)=13. For a
particular positive integer , S(n)=1274. Which of the following could be the value

of ?

（A）1 （B）3 （C）12 （D）1239 （E）1265

Problem 19
A square with side length is inscribed in a right triangle with sides of length 3,4, and 5 so
that one vertex of the square coincides with the right-angle vertex of the triangle. A square
with side length is inscribed in another right triangle with sides of length 3,4, and so

that one side of the square lies on the hypotenuse of the triangle. What is ?

Problem 20

How many ordered pairs such that is a positive real number and is an integer

between 2 and 200, inclusive, satisfy the equation

（A）198 （B）199 （C）398 （D）399 （E）597

Problem 21

A set is constructed as follows. To begin, . Repeatedly, as long as

possible, if is an integer root of some polynomial

for some , all of whose
coefficients are elements of , then is put into . When no more elements can be
added to , how many elements does have?
（A）4 （B）5 （C）7 （D）9 （E）11

Problem 22
A square is drawn in the Cartesian coordinate plane with vertices
at (2,2),(-2,2),(-2,-2),(2,-2). A particle starts at (0,0). Every second it moves with equal
probability to one of the eight lattice points (points with integer coordinates) closest to its
current position, independently of its previous moves. In other words, the probability is 1/8

that the particle will move from to each of

 , , , , , ,
, or . The particle will eventually hit the square for the first time,
either at one of the 4 corners of the square or at one of the 12 lattice points in the interior
of one of the sides of the square. The probability that it will hit at a corner rather than at an

interior point of a side is , where and are relatively prime positive integers.

What is ?
（A）4 （B）5 （C）7 （D）15 （E）39

Problem 23

For certain real numbers , , and , the polynomial has

three distinct roots, and each root of is also a root of the

polynomial What is ?

（A）-9009 （B）-8008 （C）-7007 （D）-6006 （E）-5005

Problem 24
Quadrilateral ABCD is inscribed in circle O and has side lengths AB＝3，BC＝2，CD＝6,
and DA＝8. Let and be points on
such that DX/BD=1/4 and BY/BD=11/36. Let be the intersection of line and
the line through parallel to . Let be the intersection of line and the line
through parallel to . Let be the point on circle other than that lies on
line . What is ?

Problem 25

The vertices of a centrally symmetric hexagon in the complex plane are given

by

For each , , an element is chosen from at random, independently of

the other choices. Let be the product of the 12 numbers selected. What is the

probability that ?