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counting and probability senior
Problem
A choir director must select a group of singers from among his tenors and basses. The only requirements are that the difference between the number of tenors and basses must be a multiple of , and the group must have at least one singer. Let be the number of different groups that could be selected. What is the remainder when is divided by ?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
Suppose that tenors and basses are selected. The requirements are and It follows that basses are not selected. Since the ordered pairs and the ordered pairs have one-to-one correspondence, we consider the ordered pairs instead. The requirements become and which simplify to and respectively. As the total number of such groups is from which
Final answer
D