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smc

prealgebra senior

Problem

Camila writes down five positive integers. The unique mode of these integers is greater than their median, and the median is greater than their arithmetic mean. What is the least possible value for the mode?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
Let be the median. It follows that the two largest integers are both Let and be the two smallest integers such that The sorted list is Since the median is greater than their arithmetic mean, we have or Note that must be even. We minimize this sum so that the arithmetic mean, the median, and the unique mode are minimized. Let and from which and
Final answer
D