Navvye/Olympiad-Problems-CSV huggingface dataset:
Problem: Bernardo and Silvia play the following game. An integer between $0$ and $999$ inclusive is selected and given to Bernardo. Whenever Bernardo receives a number, he doubles it and passes the result to Silvia. Whenever Silvia receives a number, she adds $50$ to it and passes the result to Bernardo. The winner is the last person who produces a number less than $1000$ . Let $N$ be the smallest initial number that results in a win for Bernardo. What is the sum of the digits of $N$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 7\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 8\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 9\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 10\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 11$

Solution: The last number that Bernardo says has to be between 950 and 999. Note that $1\rightarrow 2\rightarrow 52\rightarrow 104\rightarrow 154\rightarrow 308\rightarrow 358\rightarrow 716\rightarrow 766$ contains 4 doubling actions. Thus, we have $x \rightarrow 2x \rightarrow 2x+50 \rightarrow 4x+100 \rightarrow 4x+150 \rightarrow 8x+300 \rightarrow 8x+350 \rightarrow 16x+700$
Thus, $950<16x+700<1000$ . Then, $16x>250 \implies x \geq 16$
Because we are looking for the smallest integer $x$ $x=16$ . Our answer is $1+6=\boxed{7}$ , which is A.

Answer:  7
Problem: Bernardo and Silvia play the following game. An integer between $0$ and $999$ inclusive is selected and given to Bernardo. Whenever Bernardo receives a number, he doubles it and passes the result to Silvia. Whenever Silvia receives a number, she adds $50$ to it and passes the result to Bernardo. The winner is the last person who produces a number less than $1000$ . Let $N$ be the smallest initial number that results in a win for Bernardo. What is the sum of the digits of $N$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 7\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 8\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 9\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 10\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 11$

Solution: Work backwards. The last number Bernardo produces must be in the range $[950,999]$ . That means that before this, Silvia must produce a number in the range $[475,499]$ . Before this, Bernardo must produce a number in the range $[425,449]$ . Before this, Silvia must produce a number in the range $[213,224]$ . Before this, Bernardo must produce a number in the range $[163,174]$ . Before this, Silvia must produce a number in the range $[82,87]$ . Before this, Bernardo must produce a number in the range $[32,37]$ . Before this, Silvia must produce a number in the range $[16,18]$ . Silvia could not have added 50 to any number before this to obtain a number in the range $[16,18]$ , hence the minimum $N$ is 16 with the sum of digits being $\boxed{7}$

Answer: A 7
Problem: Bernardo and Silvia play the following game. An integer between $0$ and $999$ inclusive is selected and given to Bernardo. Whenever Bernardo receives a number, he doubles it and passes the result to Silvia. Whenever Silvia receives a number, she adds $50$ to it and passes the result to Bernardo. The winner is the last person who produces a number less than $1000$ . Let $N$ be the smallest initial number that results in a win for Bernardo. What is the sum of the digits of $N$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 7\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 8\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 9\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 10\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 11$

Solution: If our first number is $N,$ then the sequence of numbers will be \[2N,~2N+50,~4N+100,~4N+150,~8N+300,~8N+350,~16N+700,~16N+750\] Note that we cannot go any further because doubling gives an extra $1500$ at the end, which is already greater than $1000.$ The smallest $N$ will be given if $16N+750>1000>16N+700 \implies 15<N<19.$ Since the problem asks for the smallest possible value of $N,$ we get $16,$ and the sum of its digits is $1+6=\boxed{7}$

Answer: A 7
Problem: Four distinct points are arranged on a plane so that the segments connecting them have lengths $a$ $a$ $a$ $a$ $2a$ , and $b$ . What is the ratio of $b$ to $a$
$\textbf{(A)}\ \sqrt{3}\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 2\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \sqrt{5}\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 3\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ \pi$

Solution: For any $4$ non-collinear points with the given requirement, notice that there must be a triangle with side lengths $a$ $a$ $2a$ , which is not possible as $a+a=2a$ . Thus at least $3$ of the $4$ points must be collinear.
If all $4$ points are collinear, then there would only be $3$ lines of length $a$ , which wouldn't work.
If exactly $3$ points are collinear, the only possibility that works is when a $30^{\circ}-90^{\circ}-60^{\circ}$ triangle is formed.
Thus $b=\sqrt{3}a$ , or $\frac{b}{a}=\boxed{3}$

Answer: A 3
Problem: Let ( $a_1$ $a_2$ , ... $a_{10}$ ) be a list of the first 10 positive integers such that for each $2\le$ $i$ $\le10$ either $a_i + 1$ or $a_i-1$ or both appear somewhere before $a_i$ in the list. How many such lists are there?
$\textbf{(A)}\ \ 120\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 512\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \ 1024\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 181,440\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ \ 362,880$

Solution: If we have 1 as the first number, then the only possible list is $(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)$
If we have 2 as the first number, then we have 9 ways to choose where the $1$ goes, and the numbers ascend from the first number, $2$ , with the exception of the $1$ .
For example, $(2,3,1,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)$ , or $(2,3,4,1,5,6,7,8,9,10)$ . There are $\dbinom{9}{1}$ ways to do so.
If we use 3 as the first number, we need to choose 2 spaces to be 2 and 1, respectively. There are $\dbinom{9}{2}$ ways to do this.
In the same way, the total number of lists is: $\dbinom{9}{0} +\dbinom{9}{1} + \dbinom{9}{2} + \dbinom{9}{3} + \dbinom{9}{4}.....\dbinom{9}{9}$
By the binomial theorem , this is $2^{9}$ $512$ , or $\boxed{512}$

Answer: B 512
Problem: Let ( $a_1$ $a_2$ , ... $a_{10}$ ) be a list of the first 10 positive integers such that for each $2\le$ $i$ $\le10$ either $a_i + 1$ or $a_i-1$ or both appear somewhere before $a_i$ in the list. How many such lists are there?
$\textbf{(A)}\ \ 120\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 512\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \ 1024\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 181,440\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ \ 362,880$

Solution: Arrange the spaces and put arrows pointing either up or down between them. Then for each arrangement of arrows there is one and only one list that corresponds to up. For example, all arrows pointing up is $(1,2,3,4,5...10)$ . There are 9 arrows, so the answer is $2^{9}$ $512$ $\boxed{512}$

Answer: B 512
Problem: Let ( $a_1$ $a_2$ , ... $a_{10}$ ) be a list of the first 10 positive integers such that for each $2\le$ $i$ $\le10$ either $a_i + 1$ or $a_i-1$ or both appear somewhere before $a_i$ in the list. How many such lists are there?
$\textbf{(A)}\ \ 120\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 512\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \ 1024\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 181,440\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ \ 362,880$

Solution: Notice that the answer to the problem is solely based on the length of the lists, i.e. 10. We can replace 10 with smaller values, such as 2 and 3, and try to find a pattern. If we replace it with 2, we can easily see that there are two possible lists, $(1, 2)$ and $(2, 1)$ . If we replace it with 3, there are four lists, $(1, 2, 3), (2, 1, 3), (2, 3, 1),$ and $(3, 2, 1)$ . Since 2 and 4 are both powers of 2, it is likely that the number of lists is $2^{n-1}$ , where $n$ is the length of the lists. $2^{10-1}=512=\boxed{512}$

Answer: B 512
Problem: Let ( $a_1$ $a_2$ , ... $a_{10}$ ) be a list of the first 10 positive integers such that for each $2\le$ $i$ $\le10$ either $a_i + 1$ or $a_i-1$ or both appear somewhere before $a_i$ in the list. How many such lists are there?
$\textbf{(A)}\ \ 120\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 512\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \ 1024\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 181,440\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ \ 362,880$

Solution: If $a_1=10$ , the sequence must be $10, 9, 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1$ . If $a_2=10$ , then $a_1=9$ , and the sequence is $9, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5,4,3,2,1$ . If $a_3=10$ , then the possible sequences are \[9,8,10,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 \text{ and}\] \[8,9,10,7,6,5,4,3,2,1.\] In general, for an $n$ -length sequence, if $a_i=n$ , then $a_1$ through $a_{i-1}$ can be filled in $f(i-1)$ ways with $n-i+1$ through $n-1$ , and $a_{i+1}$ through $a_{n}$ must be sorted in decreasing order with the remaining numbers ( $1$ through $n-i$ ), in one way. Thus $f(n) = \sum_{i=0}^{n-1} f(i)$ , where $f(0)=1$
We can see (or prove by induction) that $f(n)=2^{n-1} ~\forall~ n \ge 1$ . Hence, $f(10)=2^9=\boxed{512}$

Answer: B 512
Problem: Amy, Beth, and Jo listen to four different songs and discuss which ones they like. No song is liked by all three. Furthermore, for each of the three pairs of the girls, there is at least one song liked by those two girls but disliked by the third. In how many different ways is this possible?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 108\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 132\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 671\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 846\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 1105$

Solution: Let the ordered triple $(a,b,c)$ denote that $a$ songs are liked by Amy and Beth, $b$ songs by Beth and Jo, and $c$ songs by Jo and Amy. The only possible triples are $(1,1,1), (2,1,1), (1,2,1)(1,1,2)$
To show this, observe these are all valid conditions. Second, note that none of $a,b,c$ can be bigger than 3. Suppose otherwise, that $a = 3$ . Without loss of generality, say that Amy and Beth like songs 1, 2, and 3. Then because there is at least one song liked by each pair of girls, we require either $b$ or $c$ to be at least 1. In fact, we require either $b$ or $c$ to equal 1, otherwise there will be a song liked by all three. Suppose $b = 1$ . Then we must have $c=0$ since no song is liked by all three girls, a contradiction.
Case 1 : How many ways are there for $(a,b,c)$ to equal $(1,1,1)$ ? There are 4 choices for which song is liked by Amy and Beth, 3 choices for which song is liked by Beth and Jo, and 2 choices for which song is liked by Jo and Amy. The fourth song can be liked by only one of the girls, or none of the girls, for a total of 4 choices. So $(a,b,c)=(1,1,1)$ in $4\cdot3\cdot2\cdot4 = 96$ ways.
Case 2 : To find the number of ways for $(a,b,c) = (2,1,1)$ , observe there are $\binom{4}{2} = 6$ choices of songs for the first pair of girls. There remain 2 choices of songs for the next pair (who only like one song). The last song is given to the last pair of girls. But observe that we let any three pairs of the girls like two songs, so we multiply by 3. In this case there are $6\cdot2\cdot3=36$ ways for the girls to like the songs.
That gives a total of $96 + 36 = 132$ ways for the girls to like the songs, so the answer is $\boxed{132}$

Answer: B 132
Problem: Amy, Beth, and Jo listen to four different songs and discuss which ones they like. No song is liked by all three. Furthermore, for each of the three pairs of the girls, there is at least one song liked by those two girls but disliked by the third. In how many different ways is this possible?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 108\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 132\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 671\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 846\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 1105$

Solution: Let $AB, BJ$ , and $AJ$ denote a song that is liked by Amy and Beth (but not Jo), Beth and Jo (but not Amy), and Amy and Jo (but not Beth), respectively. Similarly, let $A, B, J,$ and $N$ denote a song that is liked by only Amy, only Beth, only Jo, and none of them, respectively. Since we know that there is at least $1\: AB, BJ$ , and $AJ$ , they must be $3$ songs out of the $4$ that Amy, Beth, and Jo listened to. The fourth song can be of any type $N, A, B, J, AB, BJ$ , and $AJ$ (there is no $ABJ$ because no song is liked by all three, as stated in the problem.) Therefore, we must find the number of ways to rearrange $AB, BJ, AJ$ , and a song from the set $\{N, A, B, J, AB, BJ, AJ\}$
Case 1: Fourth song = $N, A, B, J$
Note that in Case 1, all four of the choices for the fourth song are different from the first three songs.
Number of ways to rearrange = $(4!)$ rearrangements for each choice $*\: 4$ choices = $96$
Case 2: Fourth song = $AB, BJ, AJ$
Note that in Case $2$ , all three of the choices for the fourth song repeat somewhere in the first three songs.
Number of ways to rearrange = $(4!/2!)$ rearrangements for each choice $*\: 3$ choices = $36$
$96 + 36 = \boxed{132}$

Answer: B 132
Problem: Amy, Beth, and Jo listen to four different songs and discuss which ones they like. No song is liked by all three. Furthermore, for each of the three pairs of the girls, there is at least one song liked by those two girls but disliked by the third. In how many different ways is this possible?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 108\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 132\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 671\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 846\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 1105$

Solution: There are $\binom{4}{3}$ ways to choose the three songs that are liked by the three pairs of girls.
There are $3!$ ways to determine how the three songs are liked, or which song is liked by which pair of girls.
In total, there are $\binom{4}{3}\cdot3!$ possibilities for the first $3$ songs.
There are $3$ cases for the 4th song, call it song D.
Case $1$ : D is disliked by all $3$ girls $\implies$ there is only $1$ possibility.
Case $2$ : D is liked by exactly $1$ girl $\implies$ there are $3$ possibility.
Case $3$ : D is liked by exactly $2$ girls $\implies$ there are $3$ pairs of girls to choose from. However, there's overlap when the other song liked by the same pair of girl is counted as the 4th song at some point, in which case D would be counted as one of the first $3$ songs liked by the same girls.
Counting the overlaps, there are $3$ ways to choose the pair with overlaps and $4\cdot3=12$ ways to choose what the other $2$ pairs like independently. In total, there are $3\cdot12=36$ overlapped possibilities.
Finally, there are $\binom{4}{3}\cdot3!\cdot(3+1+3)-36=132$ ways for the songs to be likely by the girls. $\boxed{132}$

Answer: B 132
Problem: A cell phone plan costs $20$ dollars each month, plus $5$ cents per text message sent, plus $10$ cents for each minute used over $30$ hours. In January Michelle sent $100$ text messages and talked for $30.5$ hours. How much did she have to pay?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 24.00 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 24.50 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 25.50 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 28.00 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 30.00$

Solution: The base price of Michelle's cell phone plan is $20$ dollars. 
If she sent $100$ text messages and it costs $5$ cents per text, then she must have spent $500$ cents for texting, or $5$ dollars. She talked for $30.5$ hours, but $30.5-30$ will give us the amount of time exceeded past 30 hours. $30.5-30=.5$ hours $=30$ minutes.
Since the price for phone calls is $10$ cents per minute, the additional amount Michelle has to pay for phone calls is $30*10=300$ cents, or $3$ dollars.
Adding $20+5+3$ dollars $\boxed{28}$

Answer: D 28
Problem: A small bottle of shampoo can hold $35$ milliliters of shampoo, whereas a large bottle can hold $500$ milliliters of shampoo. Jasmine wants to buy the minimum number of small bottles necessary to completely fill a large bottle. How many bottles must she buy?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 11 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 12 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 13 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 14 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 15$

Solution: To find how many small bottles we need, we can simply divide $500$ by $35$ . This simplifies to $\frac{100}{7}=14 \frac{2}{7}.$ Since the answer must be an integer greater than $14$ , we have to round up to $15$ bottles, or $\boxed{15}$

Answer: E 15
Problem: A small bottle of shampoo can hold $35$ milliliters of shampoo, whereas a large bottle can hold $500$ milliliters of shampoo. Jasmine wants to buy the minimum number of small bottles necessary to completely fill a large bottle. How many bottles must she buy?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 11 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 12 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 13 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 14 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 15$

Solution: We double $35$ to get $70.$ We see that $70\cdot7=490,$ which is very close to $500.$ Thus, $2\cdot7+1=\boxed{15}$ bottles are enough. 
~Technodoggo

Answer: E 15
Problem: Let X and Y be the following sums of arithmetic sequences:
\begin{eqnarray*}X &=& 10+12+14+\cdots+100,\\ Y &=& 12+14+16+\cdots+102.\end{eqnarray*}
What is the value of $Y - X?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 92\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 98\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 100\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 102\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 112$

Solution: We see that both sequences have equal numbers of terms, so reformat the sequence to look like:
\begin{align*} Y = \ &12 + 14 + \cdots + 100 + 102\\ X = 10 \ + \ &12 +  14 + \cdots + 100\\ \end{align*} From here it is obvious that $Y - X = 102 - 10 = \boxed{92}$

Answer: A 92
Problem: Let X and Y be the following sums of arithmetic sequences:
\begin{eqnarray*}X &=& 10+12+14+\cdots+100,\\ Y &=& 12+14+16+\cdots+102.\end{eqnarray*}
What is the value of $Y - X?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 92\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 98\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 100\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 102\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 112$

Solution: We see that every number in Y's sequence is two more than every corresponding number in X's sequence. Since there are 46 numbers in each sequence, the difference must be $46\cdot 2=\boxed{92}$

Answer:  92
Problem: Let X and Y be the following sums of arithmetic sequences:
\begin{eqnarray*}X &=& 10+12+14+\cdots+100,\\ Y &=& 12+14+16+\cdots+102.\end{eqnarray*}
What is the value of $Y - X?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 92\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 98\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 100\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 102\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 112$

Solution: \begin{align*} X&=10+12+14+\cdots +100 \\ Y&=X-10+102 = X+92 \\  Y-X &= (X+92)-X \\      &= \boxed{92} $\blacksquare$

Answer: A 92
Problem: Let X and Y be the following sums of arithmetic sequences:
\begin{eqnarray*}X &=& 10+12+14+\cdots+100,\\ Y &=& 12+14+16+\cdots+102.\end{eqnarray*}
What is the value of $Y - X?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 92\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 98\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 100\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 102\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 112$

Solution: In an actual contest, this would probably take too much time but is nevertheless a solution.
The general formula for computing sums of any arithmetic sequence where $x$ is the number of terms, $f$ is the first term and $l$ is the last term is $\frac{(f+l)x}{2}$ . If one uses that formula for both sequences, they will get $2530$ as the sum for $X$ and $2622$ as the sum for $Y$ .
Subtracting $X$ from $Y$ , one will get the answer $\boxed{92}$ .
- danfan

Answer: A 92
Problem: Set $A$ has $20$ elements, and set $B$ has $15$ elements.  What is the smallest possible number of elements in $A \cup B$
$\textbf{(A)}5 \qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 15 \qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 20\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 35\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 300$

Solution: $A \cup B$ will be smallest if $B$ is completely contained in $A$ , in which case all the elements in $B$ would be counted for in $A$ . So the total would be the number of elements in $A$ , which is $\boxed{20}$

Answer: C 20
Problem: Set $A$ has $20$ elements, and set $B$ has $15$ elements.  What is the smallest possible number of elements in $A \cup B$
$\textbf{(A)}5 \qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 15 \qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 20\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 35\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 300$

Solution: Assume WLOG that $A={1, 2, 3, 4, \cdots , 20}$ , and $B={6, 7, 8, 9, 10, \cdots , 20}$ . Then, all the integers $6$ through $20$ would be redundant in $A \cup B$ , so $A \cup B = 1, 2, 3, 4, \cdots, 20 \implies \boxed{20}$

Answer: C 20
Problem: Last summer 30% of the birds living on Town Lake were geese, 25% were swans, 10% were herons, and 35% were ducks. What percent of the birds that were not swans were geese?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 20\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 30\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 40\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 50\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 60$

Solution: 75% of the total birds were not swans. Out of that 75%, there was $30\% / 75\% = \boxed{40}$ of the birds that were not swans that were geese.

Answer: C 40
Problem: Last summer 30% of the birds living on Town Lake were geese, 25% were swans, 10% were herons, and 35% were ducks. What percent of the birds that were not swans were geese?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 20\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 30\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 40\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 50\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 60$

Solution: WLOG, suppose there were 100 birds in total living on Town Lake, then 30 were geese, 25 were swans, 10 were herons, and 35 were ducks. $100-25 = 75$ of the birds are not swans and 30 of these are geese, so the answer is $\frac{30}{75} \times 100 = \boxed{40}$

Answer: C 40
Problem: A majority of the $30$ students in Ms. Demeanor's class bought pencils at the school bookstore. Each of these students bought the same number of pencils, and this number was greater than $1$ . The cost of a pencil in cents was greater than the number of pencils each student bought, and the total cost of all the pencils was $$17.71$ . What was the cost of a pencil in cents?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 7 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 11 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 17 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 23 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 77$

Solution: The total cost of the pencils can be found by $(\text{students}\cdot\text{pencils purchased by each}\cdot\text{price of each pencil})$
Since $1771$ is the product of three sets of values, we can begin with prime factorization, since it gives some insight into the values: $7, 11, 23$ . Since neither $(C)$ nor $(E)$ are any of these factors, they can be eliminated immediately, leaving $(A)$ $(B)$ , and $(D)$
Beginning with $(A) 7$ , we see that the number of pencils purchased by each student must be either $11$ or $23$ . However, the problem states that the price of each pencil must exceed the number of pencils purchased, so we can eliminate this.
Continuing with $(B) 11$ , we can conclude that the only case that fulfils the restrictions are that there are $23$ students who each purchased $7$ such pencils, so the answer is $\boxed{11}$ . We can apply the same logic to $(E)$ as we applied to $(A)$ if one wants to make doubly sure.

Answer: B 11
Problem: A majority of the $30$ students in Ms. Demeanor's class bought pencils at the school bookstore. Each of these students bought the same number of pencils, and this number was greater than $1$ . The cost of a pencil in cents was greater than the number of pencils each student bought, and the total cost of all the pencils was $$17.71$ . What was the cost of a pencil in cents?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 7 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 11 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 17 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 23 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 77$

Solution: We know the total cost of the pencils can be found by $(\text{students}\cdot\text{pencils purchased by each}\cdot\text{price of each pencil})$
Using prime factorization like in the solution above, we see that there is only one combination of three whole numbers whose product is equal to $1771$ $7, 11, 23$ (without using $1$ ). So we know that $7, 11$ , and $23$ must be the number of students, the number of pencils purchased by each student and the price of each pencil in cents.
We know that $23$ must be the number of students, as it is the only number that makes up the majority of 30.
We pick the greater of the remaining numbers for the price of each pencil in cents, which is $11$
Therefore, our answer is $\boxed{11}$

Answer: B 11
Problem: A majority of the $30$ students in Ms. Demeanor's class bought pencils at the school bookstore. Each of these students bought the same number of pencils, and this number was greater than $1$ . The cost of a pencil in cents was greater than the number of pencils each student bought, and the total cost of all the pencils was $$17.71$ . What was the cost of a pencil in cents?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 7 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 11 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 17 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 23 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 77$

Solution: We let $s$ be the number of students that bought pencils at the bookstore, $c$ be the cost of each pencil in cents, and $n$ the number of pencils each student bought. Thus, we are looking for $c.$ Since a majority of the students in the class bought pencils at the bookstore, $s>\dfrac{30}2=15.$ (s>15) We also know that $n>1$ and $c>n>1.$ Finally, $s\cdot c\cdot n=1771.$ We can factor $1771$ as $7\cdot11\cdot23.$ Since $n>15$ and $c>n>1,$ none of them can be $1,$ and therefore $c,n,$ and $s$ are $7,11,$ and $23$ in some order. We know that $n>15,$ so $n$ must be $23.$ $c>n,$ so $c=11$ and $n=7.$ Thus, $c=\boxed{11}$ cents.
~Technodoggo

Answer: B 11