Thursday, September 09, 2010

During a behavioral experiment in a psychology class, each student is asked to compute his or her lucky number by

raising 7 to the power of the student's favorite day of the week (numbered 1 through 7 for Monday through Sunday

respectively), multiplying the result by 3, and adding this to the doubled age of the student in years, rounded to

the nearest year. If a class consists of 28 students, what is the probability that the median lucky number in the

class will be a non-integer?

(A) 0%
(B) 10%
(C) 20%
(D) 30%
(E) 40%


Since any power of 7 is odd, the product of this power and 3 will always be odd. Adding this odd number to the

doubled age of the student (an even number, since it is the product of 2 and some integer) will always yield an odd

integer. Therefore, all lucky numbers in the class will be odd.

The results of the experiment will yield a set of 28 odd integers, whose median will be the average of the 14th and

15th greatest integers in the set. Since both of these integers will be odd, their sum will always be even and

their average will always be an integer. Therefore, the probability that the median lucky number will be a non-

integer is 0%.

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