Common Terms in Arithmetic Progressions

CAT 2008 Slot 1 · QA · Medium · Arithmetic

The number of common terms in the two sequences 17,21,25,,41717, 21, 25, \dots, 417 and 16,21,26,,46616, 21, 26, \dots, 466 is

  1. A.

    78

  2. B.

    19

  3. C.

    20

  4. D.

    77

  5. E.

    22

Answer

C

Explanation

The first sequence has first term 1717 and common difference 44. The second sequence has first term 1616 and common difference 55.

The first common term is 2121.

The common difference of the common terms is LCM(4,5)=20\text{LCM}(4, 5) = 20.

The common terms form an AP: 21,41,61,,Tk21, 41, 61, \dots, T_k.

The maximum possible term cannot exceed min(417,466)=417\min(417, 466) = 417.

21+(k1)×2041721 + (k - 1) \times 20 \le 417 20(k1)396    k119.8    k20.820(k - 1) \le 396 \implies k - 1 \le 19.8 \implies k \le 20.8

Therefore, there are 2020 common terms.

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