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jmc

number theory intermediate

Problem

The number of toy cars that Ray has is a multiple of . When he loses two of them, the number of cars that he has left is a multiple of . If is a positive even integer less than , then how many possible values are there for ?
Solution
Let . Let be the number of cars that Ray originally had. Clearly for some positive integer . Additionally, Such exists if and only if is invertible modulo . In other words, . We have that . The only relatively prime to are . Thus, there are possible values of : , , and .
Final answer
3