Faster Arithmetic Methods

Coach instructions: These

problems are taken from old

Warm-Up! countdown round problems.

They should be solvable
in 45 seconds. Challenge
students to try to solve them
Try these problems before watching the lesson. all in 5 minutes or less. They
might not be able to do this
2 on the initial try, but the vid-
1. What is 40%   24  0.8 ? eo will present strategies for
3 faster computation to help
them see how these can all
Following the operations in order, the computation would be be solved quickly.
40% × 2/3 × 24 ÷ 0.8 = (4/10 × 2/3) × 24 ÷ 0.8 = (4/15 × 24) ÷ 0.8
= 32/5 ÷ 8/10 = 32/5 × 10/8 = 8. Note: The terms in blue
italics commonly appear in
OR competition problems. Make
The computation can be simplified by noticing opportunities to cancel sure Mathletes understand
their meaning!
out common factors. If we rewrite the equation with all the terms in
fraction form, we can cancel the 24 in the numerator with the 3 × 8 in the denominator and
also the 10 in the numerator with the 10 in the denominator leaving us with 4 × 2 = 8.
4 2 10 4  2  24  10
  24    42  8
10 3 8 10  3  8

2. What is the value of 1 × 12 + 2 × 11 + 3 × 10 + 4 × 9 + 5 × 8 + 6 × 7 + 7 × 6 + 8 × 5 +

9 × 4 + 10 × 3 + 11 × 2 + 12 × 1?

Notice the symmetry in this problem. Only half of the expression needs to be calculat-
ed and then that value can be multiplied by two. In other words, it can be rewritten as
2(1 × 12 + 2 × 11 + 3 × 10 + 4 × 9 + 5 × 8 + 6 × 7) = 2(12 + 22 + 30 + 36 + 40 + 42) =
2(182) = 364.

3. Mac has 25 marbles, of which 20% are red. Thayer has 20 marbles, of which 75% are not red.
What is the absolute difference between the numbers of red marbles they have?

Mac has 0.2 × 25 = 5 red marbles. Thayer has (1 – 0.75) × 20 = 0.25 × 20 = 5 red marbles.
Which gives and absolute difference of 5 − 5 = 0. Without doing calculation, you could look
at the problem and notice that 20% of 25 is the same thing as 25% of 20 and will result in
an absolute difference of zero.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
4. What is the value of the sum + + + + + + + ?
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
Since all the fractions have the same denominator, you could add up all the numerator val-
ues first and the simplify: (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8)/9 = 36/9 = 4.
OR
If you rearrange the order of the terms, you find that you can make four pairs of terms that
sum to one: (1/9 + 8/9) + (2/9 + 7/9) + (3/9 + 6/9) + (4/9 + 5/9) = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4.
5. What is the value of the sum 0.49 + 0.53 + 0.55 + 0.47 + 0.48? Express your answer as a deci-
mal to the nearest hundredth.

One solution is to add the terms in order: (0.49 + 0.53) + 0.55 + 0.47 + 0.48 = (1.02 + 0.55)
+ 0.47 + 0.48 = (1.57 + 0.47) + 0.48 = 2.04 + 0.48 = 2.52.
OR
For a faster computation, notice that all five terms are close to 0.5. We can think of this as
5 × 0.5 = 2.5 plus or minus the sum of the differences between 0.5 and each term. We have
−0.01 + 0.03 + 0.05 − 0.03 − 0.02 = 0.02. The final result will be 2.5 + 0.02 = 2.52.

Coach instructions: After

students try the warm-up
problems, play the video and

The Problems
have them follow along with
the solutions. After watching
the video, they may want to
go back and try to come up
Take a look at the following problems and follow with faster ways to solve the
along as they are explained in the video. warm-up problems before
moving on tho the final
1 2 3 4 84 85 86 problem set.
6. What is the value of the sum + + + + + + + ?
87 87 87 87 87 87 87
Solution in video. Answer: 43.

7. What is the value of 1 × 9 + 2 × 99 + 3 × 999 + 4 × 9999 + 5 × 99999?

Solution in video. Answer: 543195.

8. What is the value of 55 × 33 – 15?

Solution in video. Answer: 1800.

Coach instructions: After

watching the video, give
students 10 minutes or so

Piece It Together to try the next five prob-

lems. These problems are
from old sprint rounds and
Use the skills you practiced in the warm-up and strategies should each be solvable in
80 seconds or less, but allow
from the video to solve the following problems. students more time here to
try to think through how to
use these new strategies.
9. What is 12 × 37 + 12 × 7 + 12 × 6?

Factoring out 12 from each term, you get 12(37 + 7 + 6) = 12(50) = 600.

10. What is the value of 2 × 63 + 62 − 7 × 62?

Factoring out 62 from every term, we get 62(2 × 6 + 1 − 7) = 36(6) = 216.

11. Audra adds the numbers 2018 and 22, then multiplies the result by 2 and assigns this value to a.
Beto multiplies the numbers 2018 and 2, then adds 22 to the result and assigns this value to b.
What is the value of a − b?
 Instead of calculating a and then b, let’s write out the whole numeric expression for a − b =
(2018 + 22) × 2 − (2018 × 2 + 22). We can distribute the 2 to the terms in the left set of pa-
rentheses and distribute the −1 to the second expression in the second set of parentheses
to rewrite this expression as 2018 × 2 + 22 × 2 − 2018 × 2 − 22. Notice the we can cancel
2018 × 2 + 22 × 2 − 2018 × 2 − 22 leaving us with 22 × 2 − 22 = 22.

12. What is the value of (1 + 3 + 5 + … + 2017) − (2 + 4 + 6 + … + 2016)?

If we distribute the −1 to the terms in the second set of parentheses and use the commuta-
tive property to reorder the problem, we can rewrite this expression as 1 − 2 + 3 − 4 + 5 −
6 + … − 2016 + 2017. Notice that the first term is 1 and every subsequent pair of integers
after that add to one: −2 +3 = 1, −4 + 5 = 1, … , −2016 + 2017 = 1. So the value will be
one plus the number of pairs in the series. Since every pair starts with an even number be-
gin at 2 and going to 2016, we will have 2016/2 = 1008 pairs making the answer 1 + 1008
= 1009.

13. What is the greatest prime factor of 37 − 27?

We can rewrite this expression as 37 − 33 = 33(34 − 1) = 33((32)2 − 1) = 33(92 − 1) = 33 · 80 =

33 · 8 · 10 = 33 · 24 · 5. So the greatest prime factor is 5.
Coach instructions: If stu-
dents want to explore these
ideas further, they can do one
or both of the extensions. The
first is a proof of an algorithm
they should be familiar with.
The second is a more complex

Optional Extension
factoring problem that will
require some algebra back-
ground to complete.

To extend your understanding and have a little fun with math, try the following activities.

Option 1
When asked to multiply two multi-digit numbers without a calculator, many people instinctively com-
pute the value using the standard algorithm—multiplying each digit from one number by each digit from
the other number, systematically, and adding up the products. For example:
34
×12
68
+340
3780
Can you explain or prove, using properties of multiplication, why this algorithm works? Can you write
a general statement or proof for multiplying two arbitrary two-digit numbers AB and CD where A, B, C
and D represent digits and A and C are not zero?

Let’s arrange the problem horizontally as 34 × 12. In the first step of the algorithm
34
we deal with the units digit of the second number, 2 here, and multiply it by the
×12
first number, 34. Next, we move to the tens digit of the second number, 1 here.
68
We can rewrite 12 as 10 + 2 to represent this and then distribute the 34 to get
+340
34 × (10 + 2) = 34 × 10 + 34 × 2 = 340 + 68 = 3780. Notice that after distributing
3780
and computing the two multiplication terms, we arrive at the addition of the same
numbers as in the standard algorithm.
 100s 10s 1s To prove this algorithm for the general case of AB × CD, let’s write the
two-digit number AB as 10A + B and the two-digit number CD as 10C + D to
A B establish A and C as digits in the tens place and B and D as digits in the units
×C D place so we can multiply. Multiplying, we use F.O.I.L to get (10A + B)(10C + D)
A·D B·D = 100A·C +10A·D + 10B·C + B·D = 100A·C +10(A·D + B·C) + B·D. If we com-
+A·C C·B 00
A·C A·D B·D pare this to the calculation of AB × CD found using the standard algorithm
+ B·D shown to the left, we see that the hundreds, tens and units digits match the
C·B B·D result from F.O.I.L. method.

Option 2
Using factoring, find the value of the following expression:
2017 2  11(2017)  42
2014
Notice (1) two occurrences of 2017 in the numerator, (2) the trinomial configuration of the
expression in the numerator and (3) the denominator value is close to 2017. Let’s look just at
the numerator first. If we let x = 2017 and rewrite the expression as x2 +11x − 42, we can see
the opportunity for factoring. The expression x2 +11x − 42 can be factored into the product of
two binomials, x − 3 and x +14. Plugging 2017 back in for x, we can rewrite the numerator as
(2017 − 3)(2017 + 14). The first term, 2017 − 3, is equivalent to the denominator, which is 2014.
Canceling out, leaves us with 2017 + 14 = 2031.