Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 4 / 267 of 340 #527 of 1964

Problem 527

AMC 12 late, AIME early
Number theory Difficulty 4.9 Find the answer

161 \cdot 6 Let nn be an integer. If the tens digit of n2n^{2} is 7, what is the units digit of n2n^{2}?

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

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Official solution

[Solution] Let n=10x+yn=10 x+y, where xx and yy are integers, and 0y90 \leqslant y \leqslant 9. Thus, we have
n2=100x2+20xy+y2=20(5x2+xy)+y2 \begin{aligned} n^{2} & =100 x^{2}+20 x y+y^{2} \\ & =20\left(5 x^{2}+x y\right)+y^{2} \end{aligned}

If the tens digit of n2n^{2} is the odd number 7, then the tens digit of y2y^{2} is odd, which leads to
y2=16 or 36 y^{2}=16 \text { or } 36 \text {. }

Therefore, the units digit of n2n^{2} must be 6.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty, ordering) added by this project.