Problem 16 (2006 AMC 8) — AMC 8 · USAMO Guide - Olympiad Mathematics Learning Platform

Problem 16 (2006 AMC 8)

AMC 8Normal

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Understand the scale

Scale 0.5: Easiest math competition problems, often solvable even for early middle school students without experience. 1: Problems strictly for beginners, often at a moderate middle school level. 1.5: Problems for stronger beginner students, on the level of the middling problems in most middle school contests. 2: For motivated beginners, harder questions from the previous categories. 2.5: More advanced beginner problems, hardest questions from previous categories. 3: Early intermediate problems that require more creative thinking. 3.5: Tougher early intermediate problems that consistently stretch into higher-level creative thinking or conceptual knowledge. 4: Intermediate-level problems. 4.5: Upper intermediate problems approaching the upper bound for non-invitational sprint math competitions. 5: More difficult AIME problems or simple proof-based Olympiad-style problems. 6: High-level AIME-styled questions or introductory Olympiad-level questions. 7: Tougher Olympiad-level questions, may require more technical knowledge. 8: High-level Olympiad-level questions. 9: Expert Olympiad-level questions. 9.5: The hardest problems appearing on Olympiads which the strongest students could reasonably solve. 10: Historically notorious problems, generally unsuitable for even very hard competitions because they are exceedingly tedious, long, and difficult.

Problem

Problems 14, 15 and 16 involve Mrs. Reed's English assignment. A Novel Assignment The students in Mrs. Reed's English class are reading the same $760$ -page novel. Three friends, Alice, Bob and Chandra, are in the class. Alice reads a page in $20$ seconds, Bob reads a page in $45$ seconds and Chandra reads a page in $30$ seconds. Before Chandra and Bob start reading, Alice says she would like to team read with them. If they divide the book into three sections so that each reads for the same length of time, how many seconds will each have to read?