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Number Properties!!

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by apoorva.srivastva » Mon Jan 11, 2010 9:42 am
How many integers from 600 to 899, inclusive, contain 7 or 8 in digit?

(A) 220
(B) 236
(C) 238
(D) 240
(E) 242

Kindly explain the best approach to attack this problem!!

OA is B
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Source: — Problem Solving |

by ace_gre » Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:33 am
Little tricky one.. Here is my approach..

Easy part --> 700 to 899. # of integers containing 7 or 8 = 899-700+1=200

Now # of integers from 600 to 699.
Let integers be XYZ format. X always has to be 6. No. of ways X can be filled =>1

Number of integers where 7 or 8 is in unit's digit:
Z can be any of the two digits 7 or 8. So Z can be filled in 2 ways =>2
Y can vary from 0 to 9( since Z contains only 7 or 8) =>10
number of ways(where 7 or 8 is in units digit) = 1*10*2=20.

Now determine number of integers where 7 or 8 is in ten's digit.
X can be filled in 1 way
Y can be filled in 2 ways
Z can be filled in 0 to 9 ways. But we have already accounted for 7 and 8 in the above calculation. So we need to vary Y from 0-6 and 9 only. Y can be filled in 8 ways=>8
number of ways ( where or 8 is in ten's digit) = 1*2*8=16

Adding combinations = 200+20+16 = 236.

The tricky part was to determine that there are only 16 ways to fill ten's digit with 7 or 8 after counting for unit's digit. I was easily tricked into 240 because of double counting.

May be there is even an easier way to solve this

:?:
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by apoorva.srivastva » Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:42 am
my approach was similar tou yours but was looking forward to a quicker solution :)
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