Navvye/Olympiad-Problems-CSV huggingface dataset:
Problem: The sum of an infinite geometric series is a positive number $S$ , and the second term in the series is $1$ . What is the smallest possible value of $S?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ \frac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2} \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 2 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ \sqrt{5} \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 3 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 4$

Solution: Our sequence is $a_1,1,...$ . Since we know this is a converging series, our ratio is in $(0,1)$ . Because the 2nd term in the sequence is a 1, the ratio must be $\frac{1}{a_1}$ , so we can write $S$ as $\frac{a_1}{1-\frac{1}{a_1}}$ . With some manipulation we get $S=\frac{1}{a_1-1}$ . Since S has to be a "positive number," we come to think $a_1$ is $2$ (makes S positive & we know a sequence/series of a ratio $1/2$ is definitely convergent). So our sequence is $2,1,1/2,1,4,...$ $2+1+1=\boxed{4}$ .
-thedodecagon

Answer: E 4
Problem: All the numbers $2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7$ are assigned to the six faces of a cube, one number to each face. For each of the eight vertices of the cube, a product of three numbers is computed, where the three numbers are the numbers assigned to the three faces that include that vertex. What is the greatest possible value of the sum of these eight products?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 312 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 343 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 625 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 729 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 1680$

Solution: First assign each face the letters $a,b,c,d,e,f$ . The sum of the product of the faces is $abc+acd+ade+aeb+fbc+fcd+fde+feb$ . We can factor this into $(a+f)(b+c)(d+e)$ which is the product of the sum of each pair of opposite faces. In order to maximize $(a+f)(b+c)(d+e)$ we use the numbers $(7+2)(6+3)(5+4)$ or $\boxed{729}$

Answer: D 729
Problem: All the numbers $2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7$ are assigned to the six faces of a cube, one number to each face. For each of the eight vertices of the cube, a product of three numbers is computed, where the three numbers are the numbers assigned to the three faces that include that vertex. What is the greatest possible value of the sum of these eight products?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 312 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 343 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 625 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 729 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 1680$

Solution: We'll proceed from the factoring process above.
By the AM-GM inequality,
\[\frac{a_1+a_2+a_3}{3}\geq\sqrt[3]{a_1a_2a_3}\]
Cubing both sides,
\[\left(\frac{a_1+a_2+a_3}{3}\right)^3\geq{a_1a_2a_3}\]
Let $a_1=(a+f)$ $a_2=(b+c)$ , and $a_3=(d+e)$ . Let's substitute in these values.
\[\left(\frac{a+b+c+d+e+f}{3}\right)^3\geq{(a+f)(b+c)(d+e)}\]
$a+b+c+d+e+f$ is fixed at 27.
\[\left(\frac{27}{3}\right)^3\geq{(a+f)(b+c)(d+e)}\]
\[\boxed{729}\]

Answer: D 729
Problem: All the numbers $2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7$ are assigned to the six faces of a cube, one number to each face. For each of the eight vertices of the cube, a product of three numbers is computed, where the three numbers are the numbers assigned to the three faces that include that vertex. What is the greatest possible value of the sum of these eight products?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 312 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 343 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 625 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 729 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 1680$

Solution: First, we see that we want to try and maximize each vertex. Since the multiplication of each vertex is the product of three values, we want to maximize those three values. Doing so, we see that we want them to be as close as possible, giving $4.5^3$ (the average of all the values). This gives us the maximum for each vertex, multiplied by the 8 vertices, yields our answer $\boxed{729}$ Also note that if you cannot evaluate $4.5^3$ quickly, a rough approximation of $5*4.5*4*8$ will yield 720, very close to our answer. -rayprati

Answer: D 729
Problem: All the numbers $2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7$ are assigned to the six faces of a cube, one number to each face. For each of the eight vertices of the cube, a product of three numbers is computed, where the three numbers are the numbers assigned to the three faces that include that vertex. What is the greatest possible value of the sum of these eight products?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 312 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 343 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 625 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 729 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 1680$

Solution: It is obvious to put $5$ $6$ , and $7$ on the faces that share the same vertex. As $4$ is the next biggest number, the face with $4$ has to be next to the faces with $6$ and $7$ . As $4$ is the next biggest number, the face with $3$ has to be next to the faces with $5$ and $7$ . making the face with $2$ next to the faces with $6$ and $5$
Therefore the answer is $7 \cdot 5 \cdot 6 + 7 \cdot 4 \cdot 6 + 7 \cdot 3 \cdot 5 + 7 \cdot  3 \cdot 4 + 2 \cdot 5 \cdot 6 + 2 \cdot 4 \cdot 6 + 2 \cdot 3 \cdot 5 + 2 \cdot  3 \cdot 4 = \boxed{729}$

Answer: D 729
Problem: In how many ways can $345$ be written as the sum of an increasing sequence of two or more consecutive positive integers?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 1\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 3\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 5\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 6\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 7$

Solution: We proceed with this problem by considering two cases, when: 1) There are an odd number of consecutive numbers, 2) There are an even number of consecutive numbers.
For the first case, we can cleverly choose the convenient form of our sequence to be \[a-n,\cdots, a-1, a, a+1, \cdots, a+n\]
because then our sum will just be $(2n+1)a$ . We now have \[(2n+1)a = 345\] and $a$ will have a solution when $\frac{345}{2n+1}$ is an integer, namely when $2n+1$ is a divisor of 345. We check that \[2n+1 = 3, 5, 15, 23\] work, and no more, because $2n+1=1$ does not satisfy the requirements of two or more consecutive integers, and when $2n+1$ equals the next biggest factor, $69$ , there must be negative integers in the sequence. Our solutions are $\{114,115, 116\}, \{67, \cdots, 71\}, \{16, \cdots, 30\}, \{4, \cdots, 26\}$
For the even cases, we choose our sequence to be of the form: \[a-(n-1), \cdots, a, a+1, \cdots, a+n\] so the sum is $\frac{(2n)(2a+1)}{2} = n(2a+1)$ . In this case, we find our solutions to be $\{172, 173\}, \{55,\cdots, 60\}, \{30,\cdots, 39\}$
We have found all 7 solutions and our answer is $\boxed{7}$

Answer: E 7
Problem: In how many ways can $345$ be written as the sum of an increasing sequence of two or more consecutive positive integers?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 1\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 3\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 5\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 6\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 7$

Solution: The sum from $a$ to $b$ where $a$ and $b$ are integers and $a>b$ is
$S=\dfrac{(a-b+1)(a+b)}{2}$
$345=\dfrac{(a-b+1)(a+b)}{2}$
$2\cdot 3\cdot 5\cdot 23=(a-b+1)(a+b)$
Let $c=a-b+1$ and $d=a+b$
$2\cdot 3\cdot 5\cdot 23=c\cdot d$
If we factor $690$ into all of its factor groups $(\text{exg}~ (10,69) ~\text{or} ~(15,46))$ we will have several ordered pairs $(c,d)$ where $c<d$
The number of possible values for $c$ is half the number of factors of $690$ which is $\frac{1}{2}\cdot2\cdot2\cdot2\cdot2=8$
However, we have one extraneous case of $(1,690)$ because here, $a=b$ and we have the sum of one consecutive number which is not allowed by the question.
Thus the answer is $8-1=7$
$\boxed{7}$

Answer: E 7
Problem: In how many ways can $345$ be written as the sum of an increasing sequence of two or more consecutive positive integers?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 1\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 3\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 5\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 6\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 7$

Solution: The consecutive sums can be written as $345=kn+\sum_{i=1}^{k-1}{i}$ where $k$ is the number of terms in a sequence, and $n$ is the first term. Then, $\{k,n\}\in \mathbb{N}$ and $k\geq2$ . Evaluating the sum and rearranging yields $n=\frac{345}{k}-\frac{k-1}{2}$
The prime factorization of $345$ is $1\cdot3\cdot5\cdot23$ . Then, $3\cdot5$ $3\cdot23$ , and $5\cdot23$ are also divisors.  As odd divisors of $345$ , note that they all produce integer solutions to $n$ as $k$ . Only $k!=1$ is not valid, as $k\geq2$ . Similarly, quickly notice that $k=2$ is a solution. Multiplying an odd divisor by $2$ always yields an integer solution (see below). As such, the even integer solutions are $k=2, 2\cdot3, 2\cdot5, 2\cdot15 ... 2\cdot345$
Note that the function is decreasing for increasing values of $k$ and that $\frac{345}{k}-\frac{k-1}{2}=4$ for $k=23$ . Thus, when $n$ is negative, $k$ is only slightly more than $k=23$ . Recall $\{k,n\}\in \mathbb{N}$ . Since the next highest solution, $k=2\cdot23=46$ is twice $k=23$ $k\leq23$ . Thus, the remaining solutions are when $k=2,6,10,3,5,15,23$ $\implies \boxed{7}$

Answer: E 7
Problem: In how many ways can $345$ be written as the sum of an increasing sequence of two or more consecutive positive integers?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 1\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 3\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 5\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 6\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 7$

Solution: We're dealing with an increasing arithmetic progression of common difference 1. Let $x$ be the number of terms in a summation. Let $y$ be the first term in a summation. The sum of an arithmetic progression is the average of the first term and the last term multiplied by the number of terms. The problem tells us that the sum must be 345.
\begin{align*} x \cdot \frac{y+y+[(x-1)1]}{2}&=345 \\ 2xy+x^2-x&=690 \end{align*}
In order to satisfy the constraints of the problem, x and y must be positive integers. Maybe we can make this into a Diophantine thing! In fact, if we just factor out that $x$ ... voilà!
\[(x)(x+2y-1)=690\]
There are 16 possible factor pairs to try (for brevity, I will not enumerate them here). Notice that the expression in the right parenthesis is $2y-1$ more than the expression in the parenthesis on the left. $y$ is at least 1. Thus, the expression in the right parenthesis will always be greater than the expression on the left. This eliminates 8 factor pairs. The problem also says the "increasing sequence" has to have "two or more" terms, so $x \geqslant 2$ . This eliminates the factor pair $1 \cdot 690$ . With brief testing, we find that the the other 7 factor pairs produce 7 viable ordered pairs. This means we have found $\boxed{7}$ ways to write 345 in the silly way outlined by the problem.

Answer: E 7
Problem: In how many ways can $345$ be written as the sum of an increasing sequence of two or more consecutive positive integers?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 1\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 3\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 5\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 6\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 7$

Solution: By the sum of an arithmetic sequence... this ultimately comes to $n+n+1+n+2....+n+p=345=(2n+p)(p+1)=690=23\cdot3\cdot5\cdot2$
Quick testing (would take you roughly a minute)
We see that the first 7 values of $p$ that work are
$p=1,2,4,5,9,14,22$
We see that each one of them works.
Hence, the answer is $\boxed{7}$

Answer:  7
Problem: In how many ways can $345$ be written as the sum of an increasing sequence of two or more consecutive positive integers?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 1\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 3\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 5\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 6\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 7$

Solution: The sum of all integers from $x$ to $y$ inclusive is equal to
\[\frac{y(y+1)}{2}-\left(\frac{x(x+1)}{2}\right)+x.\]
In words, $x$ added to sum of the first $x$ positive inegers subtracted from the sum of the first positive $y$ integers.
Setting this equal to $345$ and multiplying by $2$ to clear fractions, we can see that \[y(y+1)-x(x+1)+2x\] \[=y^2-x^2+y+x\] \[=(y+x)(y-x+1)=690.\] Now we know that, $y+x$ and $y-x+1$ multiply together to $690$ , and they're both integers. Now, we can set $y+x$ and $y-x+1$ equal to factors of $690$ . Clearly, $x>\frac{1}{2},$ so $y+x$ will take the larger of the two factors.
We can factorize $690$ as $1\cdot2\cdot3\cdot5\cdot23$
We also know that when solving for $y$ , we can add the two systems in $y+x$ and $y-x+1$ to get a new equation in terms of $2y+1.$ In order for $y$ to be an integer, the sum of the two factors must be odd.
We also know that there is only one factor of $2$ , so either $y+x$ or $y-x+1$ will be even. The number of odd factors multiplied together can either be $1, 2$ or $3$ (0 doesn't work, since $(690, 1)$ doesn't). There are a total of $3$ odd numbers present in our new prime factorization, now excluding $1$
Therefore, the number of combinations that yield integral values for both $x$ and $y$ are \[{3\choose1}+{3\choose2}+{3\choose3}= \boxed{7}\]

Answer: E 7
Problem: What is the area of the region enclosed by the graph of the equation $x^2+y^2=|x|+|y|?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ \pi+\sqrt{2} \qquad\textbf{(B)}\ \pi+2 \qquad\textbf{(C)}\ \pi+2\sqrt{2} \qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 2\pi+\sqrt{2} \qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 2\pi+2\sqrt{2}$

Solution: Consider the case when $x \geq 0$ $y \geq 0$ \[x^2+y^2=x+y\] \[(x - \frac{1}{2})^2+(y - \frac{1}{2})^2=\frac{1}{2}\] Notice the circle intersect the axes at points $(0, 1)$ and $(1, 0)$ . Find the area of this circle in the first quadrant. The area is made of a semi-circle with radius of $\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}$ and a triangle: \[A = \frac{\pi}{4} +\frac{1}{2}\] [asy]draw((0,-1.5)--(0,1.5),EndArrow);draw((-1.5,0)--(1.5,0),EndArrow);draw((0,1)--(1,0)--(0,-1)--(-1,0)--cycle,dotted);draw(arc((1/2,1/2),sqrt(2)/2,135, 315),dotted);for(int i=0;i<4;++i){draw(rotate(i*90,(0,0))*arc((1/2,1/2),sqrt(2)/2,-45,135)); dot(rotate(i*90,(0,0))*(1/2,1/2));}[/asy] Because of symmetry, the area is the same in all four quadrants.
The answer is $\boxed{2}$

Answer: B 2
Problem: A set of teams held a round-robin tournament in which every team played every other team exactly once. Every team won $10$ games and lost $10$ games; there were no ties. How many sets of three teams $\{A, B, C\}$ were there in which $A$ beat $B$ $B$ beat $C$ , and $C$ beat $A?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 385 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 665 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 945 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 1140 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 1330$

Solution: We use complementary counting. First, because each team played $20$ other teams, there are $21$ teams total. All sets that do not have $A$ beat $B$ $B$ beat $C$ , and $C$ beat $A$ have one team that beats both the other teams. Thus we must count the number of sets of three teams such that one team beats the two other teams and subtract that number from the total number of ways to choose three teams.
There are $21$ ways to choose the team that beat the two other teams, and $\binom{10}{2} = 45$ to choose two teams that the first team both beat. This is $21 * 45 = 945$ sets. There are $\binom{21}{3} = 1330$ sets of three teams total. Subtracting, we obtain $1330 - 945 = \boxed{385})$ is our answer.

Answer: A 385
Problem: A set of teams held a round-robin tournament in which every team played every other team exactly once. Every team won $10$ games and lost $10$ games; there were no ties. How many sets of three teams $\{A, B, C\}$ were there in which $A$ beat $B$ $B$ beat $C$ , and $C$ beat $A?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 385 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 665 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 945 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 1140 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 1330$

Solution: As above, note that there are 21 teams, and call them A, B, C, ... T, U. WLOG, assume that A beat teams B-L and lost to teams M-U. We will count the number of sets satisfying the “cycle-win” condition—e.g. here, A beats a team in X which beats a team in Y which beats A. The first and third part of the condition are already met by our wlog, so we just need to count of number of ways the second condition is true (a team in X beats a team in Y). These are the number of cycle-wins that include A, then multiply by 21 (for each team) and divide by 3 (since every set will be counted by each of the 3 teams that are a part of that set).
To do this, let X $=\{B, ..., L\}$ and Y $=\{M, ..., U\}$ . Since a total of $10*10=100$ losses total were suffered by teams in Y and $\binom{10}{2}=45^{*}$ losses were suffered by teams in Y from teams in Y, we have $100-45=55$ losses suffered by teams in Y from teams in X. Hence, for each of these $55$ losses, there is exactly one set of three teams that includes A that satisfies the problem conditions. Thus, the answer is $\frac{55\cdot 21}{3}=\boxed{385}$

Answer:  385
Problem: A set of teams held a round-robin tournament in which every team played every other team exactly once. Every team won $10$ games and lost $10$ games; there were no ties. How many sets of three teams $\{A, B, C\}$ were there in which $A$ beat $B$ $B$ beat $C$ , and $C$ beat $A?$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 385 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 665 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 945 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 1140 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 1330$

Solution: Note that there are $21$ teams total and $\binom{21}{3}=1330$ ways to pick ${A,B,C}.$ The possible arrangements are one team beats the other two or they each win/lose equally (we want the second case). Approximately $\frac{1}{4}$ of all the arrangements satisfy the second case, and $\frac{1330}{4}=332.5,$ which is by far the closest to $\boxed{385}.$

Answer: A 385
Problem: For a certain positive integer $n$ less than $1000$ , the decimal equivalent of $\frac{1}{n}$ is $0.\overline{abcdef}$ , a repeating decimal of period of $6$ , and the decimal equivalent of $\frac{1}{n+6}$ is $0.\overline{wxyz}$ , a repeating decimal of period $4$ . In which interval does $n$ lie?
$\textbf{(A)}\ [1,200]\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ [201,400]\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ [401,600]\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ [601,800]\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ [801,999]$

Solution: Solution by e_power_pi_times_i
If $\frac{1}{n} = 0.\overline{abcdef}$ $n$ must be a factor of $999999$ . Also, by the same procedure, $n+6$ must be a factor of $9999$ . Checking through all the factors of $999999$ and $9999$ that are less than $1000$ , we see that $n = 297$ is a solution, so the answer is $\boxed{201,400}$

Answer: B 201,400
Problem: For a certain positive integer $n$ less than $1000$ , the decimal equivalent of $\frac{1}{n}$ is $0.\overline{abcdef}$ , a repeating decimal of period of $6$ , and the decimal equivalent of $\frac{1}{n+6}$ is $0.\overline{wxyz}$ , a repeating decimal of period $4$ . In which interval does $n$ lie?
$\textbf{(A)}\ [1,200]\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ [201,400]\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ [401,600]\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ [601,800]\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ [801,999]$

Solution: Notice that the repeating fraction $0.\overline{abcdef}$ can be represented as $\frac{abcdef}{999999},$ and thereby, $n|999999.$ Also, notice that $0.\overline{wxyz} = \frac{wxyz}{9999},$ so $(n+6)|9999.$ However, we have to make some restrictions here. For instance, if $n|99999,$ then $\frac{1}{n}$ could be expressed as $\frac{a’b’c’d’e’}{99999} = .\overline{a’b’c’d’e’}$ which cannot happen. Therefore, from this, we see that the smallest $m$ such that $n|\underbrace{999\cdots999}_{m \text{ nines}}$ is $m = 6.$ Also, the smallest number $m$ such that $(n+6)|\underbrace{999\cdots999}_{m \text{ nines}}$ is $m = 4$ by similar reasoning.
Proceeding, we can factorize $9999 = 99 \times 101,$ after which we see that $n+6$ must contain a prime factor of $101$ as it cannot divide $99$ but must divide $9999.$ However, $101$ is prime, so $101|(n+6)$ ! Looking at the answer choices, all of the intervals are less than $1000,$ so we know that (the minimum value of) $n+6$ is thereby either $101, 101 \times 3,$ or $101 \times 9.$ Testing, we see that $n+6 = 303$ gives $n = 297 = 3^3 \times 11,$ which in fact is a divisor of $999 \times 1001$ while not being a divisor of $999.$ Therefore, the answer is $\boxed{201,400}.$

Answer: B 201,400
Problem: There are exactly $77,000$ ordered quadruplets $(a, b, c, d)$ such that $\gcd(a, b, c, d) = 77$ and $\operatorname{lcm}(a, b, c, d) = n$ . What is the smallest possible value for $n$
$\textbf{(A)}\ 13,860\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 20,790\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 21,560 \qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 27,720 \qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 41,580$

Solution: Let $A=\frac{a}{77},\ B=\frac{b}{77}$ , etc., so that $\gcd(A,B,C,D)=1$ . Then for each prime power $p^k$ in the prime factorization of $N=\frac{n}{77}$ , at least one of the prime factorizations of $(A,B,C,D)$ has $p^k$ , at least one has $p^0$ , and all must have $p^m$ with $0\le m\le k$
Let $f(k)$ be the number of ordered quadruplets of integers $(m_1,m_2,m_3,m_4)$ such that $0\le m_i\le k$ for all $i$ , the largest is $k$ , and the smallest is $0$ . Then for the prime factorization $N=2^{k_2}3^{k_3}5^{k_5}\ldots$ we must have $77000=f(k_2)f(k_3)f(k_5)\ldots$ So let's take a look at the function $f(k)$ by counting the quadruplets we just mentioned.
There are $14$ quadruplets which consist only of $0$ and $k$ . Then there are $36(k-1)$ quadruplets which include three different values, and $12(k-1)(k-2)$ with four. Thus $f(k)=14+12(k-1)(3+k-2)=14+12(k^2-1)$ and the first few values from $k=1$ onwards are \[14,50,110,194,302,434,590,770,\ldots\] Straight away we notice that $14\cdot 50\cdot 110=77000$ , so the prime factorization of $N$ can use the exponents $1,2,3$ . To make it as small as possible, assign the larger exponents to smaller primes. The result is $N=2^33^25^1=360$ , so $n=360\cdot 77=27720$ which is answer $\boxed{27,720}$

Answer: D 27,720
Problem: The sequence $(a_n)$ is defined recursively by $a_0=1$ $a_1=\sqrt[19]{2}$ , and $a_n=a_{n-1}a_{n-2}^2$ for $n\geq 2$ . What is the smallest positive integer $k$ such that the product $a_1a_2\cdots a_k$ is an integer?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 17\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 18\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 19\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 20\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 21$

Solution: Let $b_i=19\text{log}_2a_i$ . Then $b_0=0, b_1=1,$ and $b_n=b_{n-1}+2b_{n-2}$ for all $n\geq 2$ . The characteristic polynomial of this linear recurrence is $x^2-x-2=0$ , which has roots $2$ and $-1$
Therefore, $b_n=k_12^{n}+k_2(-1)^n$ for constants to be determined $k_1, k_2$ .  Using the fact that $b_0=0, b_1=1,$ we can solve a pair of linear equations for $k_1, k_2$
$k_1+k_2=0$ $2k_1-k_2=1$
Thus $k_1=\frac{1}{3}$ $k_2=-\frac{1}{3}$ , and $b_n=\frac{2^n-(-1)^n}{3}$
Now, $a_1a_2\cdots a_k=2^{\frac{(b_1+b_2+\cdots+b_k)}{19}}$ , so we are looking for the least value of $k$ so that
$b_1+b_2+\cdots+b_k \equiv 0 \pmod{19}$
Note that we can multiply all $b_i$ by three for convenience, as the $b_i$ are always integers, and it does not affect divisibility by $19$
Now, for all even $k$ the sum (adjusted by a factor of three) is $2^1+2^2+\cdots+2^k=2^{k+1}-2$ . The smallest $k$ for which this is a multiple of $19$ is $k=18$ by Fermat's Little Theorem, as it is seen with further testing that $2$ is a primitive root $\pmod{19}$
Now, assume $k$ is odd. Then the sum (again adjusted by a factor of three) is $2^1+2^2+\cdots+2^k+1=2^{k+1}-1$ . The smallest $k$ for which this is a multiple of $19$ is $k=17$ , by the same reasons. Thus, the minimal value of $k$ is $\boxed{17}$

Answer: A 17
Problem: The sequence $(a_n)$ is defined recursively by $a_0=1$ $a_1=\sqrt[19]{2}$ , and $a_n=a_{n-1}a_{n-2}^2$ for $n\geq 2$ . What is the smallest positive integer $k$ such that the product $a_1a_2\cdots a_k$ is an integer?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 17\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 18\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 19\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 20\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 21$

Solution: Since the product $a_1a_2\cdots a_k$ is an integer, it must be a power of $2$ , so the sum of the base- $2$ logarithms must be an integer. Multiply all of these logarithms by $19$ (to make them integers), so the sum must be a multiple of $19$
The logarithms are $b_n = 19\log_2 a_n$ . Using the recursion $b_0 = 0, b_1 = 1, b_n = b_{n-1}+2b_{n-2}$ (modulo $19$ to save calculation time), we get the sequence \[0,1,1,3,5,11,2,5,9,0,-1,-1,-3,-5,-11,-2,-5,-9,0,\dots\] Listing the numbers out is expedited if you notice $b_{n+1}=2b_n+(-1)^n$
The cycle repeats every $9+9=18$ terms. Notice that since $b_n+b_{n+9} \equiv 0 \pmod{19}$ , the first $18$ terms sum up to a multiple of $19$ . Since $b_{18}=0$ , we only need at most the first $\boxed{17}$ terms to sum up to a multiple of $19$ , and this is the lowest answer choice.

Answer: A 17
Problem: The sequence $(a_n)$ is defined recursively by $a_0=1$ $a_1=\sqrt[19]{2}$ , and $a_n=a_{n-1}a_{n-2}^2$ for $n\geq 2$ . What is the smallest positive integer $k$ such that the product $a_1a_2\cdots a_k$ is an integer?
$\textbf{(A)}\ 17\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 18\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 19\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 20\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 21$

Solution: Like in Solution 2 , calculate the first few terms of the sequence, but also keep a running sum $c_n$ of the logarithms (not modulo $19$ here): \[0,1,2,5,10,21,42,\dots\] Notice that $c_n=2c_{n-1}+1$ for odd $n$ and $c_n=2c_{n-1}$ for even $n$ . Since $2$ is relatively prime to $19$ , we can ignore even $n$ and calculate odd $n$ using $c_1 = 1, c_{n} = 4c_{n-2}+1$ (modulo $19$ ): \[,1,,5,,2,,9,,-1,,-3,,8,,-5,,0,\dots\] $c_n$ is first a multiple of $19$ at $n = \boxed{17}$ . ~ emerald_block

Answer: A 17