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by theachiever » Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:43 pm
A necklace is made by stringing N individual beads together in a repeating pattern red,green,white,blue and yellow bead.If the necklace design begins with a red bead and ends with a white bead,then N could equal

A.16
B.32
C.41
D.54
E.68
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Source: — Problem Solving |

by Bill@VeritasPrep » Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:55 pm
Our pattern is:

Red
Green
White
Blue
Yellow

repeated indefinitely. If our necklace ends with a white bead, then we must have a number of sets of our five unique colors, plus 3 extra "loose" beads to end on white. Essentially, if we subtract the 3 loose beads from each answer choice, the correct answer must be a multiple of 5. This means we're looking for an answer with a units digit of 3 or 8, and only E gives us what we need.
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by jkaustubh » Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:59 pm
The necklace follows the pattern 5x+3

where x is the number of full repetitions of the set R,G,W,B,Y

for
x=1.........8
x=2.........13
x=3.........18
..............

x=13 we get 68

hence IMO the answer should be E
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