sanju09 wrote:In a certain pastime, a contestant can accrue points only by scoring either an M, which counts 3 points, or an N, which counts 2 points. If a contestant scored 24 points in the pastime and x points were made by scoring M's, how many different values could x have?
(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8

IMO the answer shd be A

X has to an even. Only then the points from N can make it 24. (I am assuming that the contenstant has scored only 24. Not beyond that)

Am I correct??

Regards,
Chetan

chetansharma wrote:

sanju09 wrote:In a certain pastime, a contestant can accrue points only by scoring either an M, which counts 3 points, or an N, which counts 2 points. If a contestant scored 24 points in the pastime and x points were made by scoring M's, how many different values could x have?
(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8

IMO the answer shd be A

X has to an even. Only then the points from N can make it 24. (I am assuming that the contenstant has scored only 24. Not beyond that)

Am I correct??

Regards,
Chetan

Your explanation is not clearly addressing to the problem in hand. We are to answer "how many different values could x have?". Moreover, OA is [spoiler]B[/spoiler].

sanju09 wrote:

chetansharma wrote:

sanju09 wrote:In a certain pastime, a contestant can accrue points only by scoring either an M, which counts 3 points, or an N, which counts 2 points. If a contestant scored 24 points in the pastime and x points were made by scoring M's, how many different values could x have?
(A) 4
(B) 5
(C) 6
(D) 7
(E) 8

IMO the answer shd be A

X has to an even. Only then the points from N can make it 24. (I am assuming that the contenstant has scored only 24. Not beyond that)

Am I correct??

Regards,
Chetan

Your explanation is not clearly addressing to the problem in hand. We are to answer "how many different values could x have?". Moreover, OA is [spoiler]B[/spoiler].

May be I have not explained it properly. The question seeks answer on different values X could have?
When I said that X has to be even, I meant that X can take values 6,12,18,24. If X is among 6,12 or 18 then the points from N (which are multiples of 2) can make it complete to 2). May be X can also take the value 0, which makes the total different values of X to be 5. Earlier I have not considered 0 to be one of the values that X could take.
Hope this explanation is a bit clear now

Regards,
Chetan