2009 Northwest Math Championship

Algebra 9-10
1. Find all solutions to this equation, if any exist:

a+3 a+4
18
.
!
= 2
a
a + 5 a + 5a

2. Twice the reciprocal of a number is the same as 12 divided by five more than
five times the number. What is the number?
4
3. What is the y-intercept of the line perpendicular to y = x ! 6 that intersects it at x = 3?
3
4. If Bob walked around the earth at the equator, his head would travel farther than his feet. If the
distance his head traveled is 36 feet more than the distance his feet traveled, how tall is Bob, to the
nearest hundredth of a foot?
5. Find the value of x that makes the areas of these shapes equal:

3 x

x+1

2
6. Give an exact value for the continued fraction 2 +

1
2+

1
2+

x+1
6

1
2 + ...

7. Joannies grandmother said, Im just six times as old as Joannie is now. In eighteen years, she
will be just a third of the age that I will be then. How old is Joannie?
8. If eight crinkles and two crankles cost twenty cents, and if four crinkles and six crankles cost forty
cents, how much change will you get (in cents) if you pay for ten crinkles and eleven crankles
with a dollar?
9. A company makes two types of thingies: trinkets and whatsits. Trinkets sell for $200 and whatsits
sell for $300.

No more than 7 trinkets and no more than 11 whatsits can be manufactured per day.
No more than 12 total thingies can be manufactured per day.
The number of trinkets manufactured per day must be no more than twice the number of
whatsits.
You must use more than 1000 hours of labor per day. It takes 100 hours to manufacture each
trinket and 200 hours to manufacture each whatsit.

What is the greatest revenue in dollars that the company can make in one day?
10. Kate has 50 ml of a 15% solution of trishydroxymethylaminomethane. In ml, what volume of 8%
solution must she add if she desires a 10% solution?

2009 Northwest Math Championship

Advanced Algebra / Trigonometry 11-12

1. What is the distance between the point (5, 10) and the line whose equation
is 3x ! 4y = !20 ?
2. For x > 0, simplify 7 log 21 (21x) ! log 21 (x 7 ) .
3. Find the coefficient of a 2b 2 in the binomial expansion of (a ! 2b)4 .
4. A charter airline company charges $300 per round-trip ticket to Dakar if it can sell all 95 seats on
the plane. For every empty seat, the price of a ticket increases by $3.50. What is the maximum
possible income in dollars for one flight?
2
of the way into the tunnel,
5
they hear a train approaching them from behind. Tina, on instinct, runs away from the train
toward the far end of the tunnel. Ryan opts to run back the way they came (toward the train).
They both run at 12 mph and they both barely escape from the tunnel in time. How fast (in miles
per hour) was the train moving?

5. Tina and Ryan decide to walk into a railroad tunnel. Upon walking

6. A plane flying with an air speed of 400 mi/hr crosses the jet stream, which is blowing at 150
mi/hr. The angle between the two velocity vectors is 42. The planes actual velocity with
respect to the ground is the vector sum of these two velocities. What is the actual ground speed of
the plane in miles per hour to the nearest whole number?
7. Find the sum of all solutions to the equation 2 ! 2 cos 2 " = 7 sin " ! 3!!such that!!" #[0, 720) .
8. As you stop your car at a traffic light, a pebble becomes wedged between the tire treads. When
you start moving again, the distance between the pebble and the pavement varies sinusoidally with
the distance you have gone. Assume that the diameter of the wheel is 24 inches. What is the
distance (in inches to the nearest tenth) you have gone the third time that the pebble is 11 inches
above the pavement?

2009 Northwest Math Championship

Advanced Algebra / Trigonometry 11-12

9. Suppose you seek a treasure that is buried in the side of a mountain. The mountain range has a
sinusoidal vertical cross section. The valley to the left is filled with water to a depth of 50 m, and
the top of the mountain is 150 m above the water level. You set up an x-axis at water level and a
y-axis 200 m to the right of the deepest part of the water. The top of the mountain is at x = 400 m.
The treasure is located at the point (130, 40). Which would be a shorter way to dig to the treasure,
a horizontal tunnel or a vertical tunnel? What is the positive difference (in meters to the nearest
tenth) between the two distances?
Mountaintop
150

! - Treasure

-200
Water

400

-50

10. Find the area (in square meters) of the following quadrilateral. Round your answer to the nearest
integer.
60 m

50 m

127

132

70 m