King's Rare Jewels in Three Boxes

XAT 2024 · Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation · Medium · Arithmetic

A king has distributed all his rare jewels in three boxes. The first box contains 1/31/3 of the rare jewels, while the second box contains k/5k/5 of the rare jewels, for some positive integer value of kk. The third box contains 6666 rare jewels.

How many rare jewels does the king have?

  1. A.

    990

  2. B.

    660

  3. C.

    240

  4. D.

    1080

  5. E.

    Cannot be determined uniquely from the given information.

Answer

A

Explanation

Let XX be the total number of jewels. X/3+kX/5+66=X  ⟹  66=X(1−13−k5)=X(23−k5)=X10−3k15X/3 + kX/5 + 66 = X \implies 66 = X\left(1 - \frac{1}{3} - \frac{k}{5}\right) = X\left(\frac{2}{3} - \frac{k}{5}\right) = X\frac{10 - 3k}{15}. So X(10−3k)=66×15=990X(10 - 3k) = 66 \times 15 = 990. Since kk is a positive integer and 10−3k>010 - 3k > 0, possible values for kk are 1,2,31, 2, 3. If k=1k = 1: 10−3=7  ⟹  X=990/710 - 3 = 7 \implies X = 990/7 (not an integer). If k=2k = 2: 10−6=4  ⟹  X=990/410 - 6 = 4 \implies X = 990/4 (not an integer). If k=3k = 3: 10−9=1  ⟹  X=99010 - 9 = 1 \implies X = 990. Thus X=990X = 990 is uniquely determined.

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