Practice30Create account

A town's streets run in a grid. A cyclist starts at one junction and must reach a junction 3 blocks east and 2 blocks north of it, keeping to the streets and never riding south or west. How many different routes can she take?

Competition practiceReasoning & Mental Ability
  • A10
  • B6
  • C5
  • D20

Step-by-Step Solution

Every route is 5 blocks long — 3 eastward and 2 northward — and a route is settled once you decide which 2 of those 5 blocks are the northward ones. There are 10 ways to choose 2 things out of 5. A second way to see it is to write on each junction the number of routes reaching it: the bottom row reads 1, 1, 1, 1; the next row 1, 2, 3, 4; the top row 1, 3, 6, 10, since each junction's number is the sum of the numbers just west and just south of it. The traps: 6 multiplies the two block counts, ; 5 adds them; 20 is the count for going 3 blocks east and 3 blocks north, one block too far.
Answer: A) 10

Master this topic in 30 minutes a day.

Don't just memorise the answer — build a daily practice habit.

Practice 5 Similar Questions Free →

All Reasoning & Mental Ability practice questions

More Reasoning & Mental Ability practice

A wooden cube is to be sawn into 27 identical small cubes. Between one cut and the next…A book has its pages numbered 1 to 100. Counting every appearance separately, how many…Complete the analogy: Cube : Square :: Cylinder : ?Three of these four numbers can be written as one square number added to another square…Three of these four numbers leave the same remainder when they are divided by 7. Which…