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Printsmc
prealgebra senior
Problem
Let , , , , and be positive integers with and let be the largest of the sum , , and . What is the smallest possible value of ?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
We want to try make , , , and as close as possible so that , the maximum of these, is smallest. Notice that . In order to express as a sum of numbers, we must split up some of these numbers. There are two ways to do this (while keeping the sum of two numbers as close as possible): or . We see that in both cases, the value of is , so the answer is .
Final answer
B