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Smallest square-valued bank of easy and medium items

Question

A puzzle writer keeps a stock of easy and medium questions. Every easy one is valued at $3 and every medium one at $6. When one question is drawn uniformly at random from the stock, it is medium with probability 1/41/4. The combined value of the entire stock, in dollars, is a perfect square. What is the least that total can be?

Short answer

$225. The medium probability of 1/41/4 forces three easy questions per medium one, so the stock splits into blocks worth 3⋅3+6=153\cdot3+6=15 dollars. We need the least nn with 15n15n a perfect square, which is n=15n=15, giving 225225.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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