A number when divided successively by 4 and 5 leaves

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A number when divided successively by 4 and 5 leaves remainders 1 and 4 respectively. What will be the remainder when this number is divided by 20?

(A) 0
(B) 3
(C) 4
(D) 9
(E) 17

[spoiler[OA=E[/spoiler]

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by Ian Stewart » Mon Apr 22, 2019 8:58 am
The question means something different from what it actually says, but I can guess what it's trying to say.

When we take our number, "n", and divide it by 4, we get a remainder of 1. So n is exactly 1 greater than some multiple of 4, and we have:

n = 4q + 1

It's here where the wording is confused. We are not now "successively" dividing our number n by 5, so we are not dividing n/4 by 5 (which wouldn't make sense in a remainders question, because n/4 is not an integer at all). Instead we're meant here only to be dividing the resulting quotient by 5, ignoring the remainder. So it's only q in the equation above that we're dividing by 5. Since we get a remainder of 4 when we divide q by 5, and we have:

q = 5k + 4

And now we can just plug that in for q in our first equation above:

n = 4q + 1 = 4(5k + 4) + 1 = 20k + 17

and we can see that n is 17 larger than some multiple of 20, and thus when we divide it by 20, the remainder will be 17.
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by Scott@TargetTestPrep » Tue Apr 23, 2019 6:58 pm
M7MBA wrote:A number when divided successively by 4 and 5 leaves remainders 1 and 4 respectively. What will be the remainder when this number is divided by 20?

(A) 0
(B) 3
(C) 4
(D) 9
(E) 17

[spoiler[OA=E[/spoiler]

Source: Veritas Prep
We need to find a number that, when divided by 4, leaves a remainder of 1, and when the quotient from this division is divided by 5, a remainder of 4 remains. Let's represent this number by n.

Since our number produces a remainder of 1 when divided by 4, it must be true that n = 4p + 1 for some integer p.

Since the quotient from the previous division, which is p, produces a remainder of 4 when divided by 5, we have p = 5q + 4. Let's substitute this expression for p into the previous equation:

n = 4p + 1

n = 4(5q + 4) + 1

n = 20q + 16 + 1

n = 20q + 17

Finally, since 20q is divisible by 20, the remainder from the division of n by 20 is 17.

Answer: E

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