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counting and probability senior
Problem
In a tennis tournament, women and men play, and each player plays exactly one match with every other player. If there are no ties and the ratio of the number of matches won by women to the number of matches won by men is , then equals
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
Solution
Since there are women and men, there are a total of players. Hence, the number of total matches must be . We also know that the ratio of the number of matches won by women to the number of matches won by men is and that there were no draws, so the total number of matches must be for some value . This givesSoIt follows that (various ways of splitting into two factors). However, for solutions , isn't an integer, therefore leaving solutions and . is invalid. This can be shown as when ,The ratio of matches won by gender is , so the number of matches won by women must be at least . The maximum number of matches won by women is equivalent to the number of matches between men (generates 1 match won by men no matter the outcome) subtracted from the total number of matches, which is . As the maximum number of matches won is smaller than , the solution is extraneous/invalid. Hence, the answer must be , or
Final answer
E