Last visit was: 24 Apr 2026, 08:48 It is currently 24 Apr 2026, 08:48
Close
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.

Customized
for You

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History

Track
Your Progress

every week, we’ll send you an estimated GMAT score based on your performance

Practice
Pays

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Close
Request Expert Reply
Confirm Cancel
User avatar
PTK
Joined: 02 Jul 2009
Last visit: 06 Oct 2022
Posts: 1,135
Own Kudos:
2,219
 [73]
Given Kudos: 622
Status:mission completed!
GPA: 3.77
Products:
Posts: 1,135
Kudos: 2,219
 [73]
9
Kudos
Add Kudos
64
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Most Helpful Reply
User avatar
gurpreetsingh
Joined: 12 Oct 2009
Last visit: 15 Jun 2019
Posts: 2,266
Own Kudos:
3,962
 [20]
Given Kudos: 235
Status:<strong>Nothing comes easy: neither do I want.</strong>
Location: Malaysia
Concentration: Technology, Entrepreneurship
Schools: ISB '15 (M)
GMAT 1: 670 Q49 V31
GMAT 2: 710 Q50 V35
Products:
Schools: ISB '15 (M)
GMAT 2: 710 Q50 V35
Posts: 2,266
Kudos: 3,962
 [20]
7
Kudos
Add Kudos
13
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
User avatar
mikemcgarry
User avatar
Magoosh GMAT Instructor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Last visit: 06 Aug 2018
Posts: 4,474
Own Kudos:
30,882
 [9]
Given Kudos: 130
Expert
Expert reply
Posts: 4,474
Kudos: 30,882
 [9]
5
Kudos
Add Kudos
3
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
General Discussion
User avatar
shrouded1
User avatar
Retired Moderator
Joined: 02 Sep 2010
Last visit: 29 Apr 2018
Posts: 608
Own Kudos:
3,231
 [3]
Given Kudos: 25
Location: London
Products:
Posts: 608
Kudos: 3,231
 [3]
2
Kudos
Add Kudos
1
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Pkit
How many integers between 1 and \(10^21\) (10 in 21st power) are such that the sum of their digits is 2?

a.190
b.210
c.211
d.230
e.231

Bunuel, please leave a chance for other people to solve this. :)

thanks

between 1 and 10^21 means we are talking about numbers with upto 21 digits.

Case 1
Numbers of the form 2,20,200,etc
Possible numbers = 21 (1 possibility for each number of digits)

Case 2
Numbers using the digits {1,1}
Such a number will have a minimum of 2 digits and a maximum of 21 digits, with the first digit=1.
Now, consider the k-digit number, with the first digit "1", out of the rest of the k-1 digits, we have k-1 ways to choose where to put the second 1. So k-1, k-digit numbers possible.
So total number of numbers = Summation(k-1;k=2 to k=21)=1+2+...+20=20(21)/2=210



So total number of numbers = 210+21=231

Answer is (e)
User avatar
prab
Joined: 13 Aug 2010
Last visit: 23 Aug 2017
Posts: 84
Own Kudos:
135
 [1]
Given Kudos: 1
Posts: 84
Kudos: 135
 [1]
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
so the second condition means there are 21 positions and two number, 1 and 1 so place in then. hence we can use the combination formula 21c11 and get 210.
User avatar
shrouded1
User avatar
Retired Moderator
Joined: 02 Sep 2010
Last visit: 29 Apr 2018
Posts: 608
Own Kudos:
3,231
 [3]
Given Kudos: 25
Location: London
Products:
Posts: 608
Kudos: 3,231
 [3]
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Yea that's a good way to think about it

But formula will be C(21,2) not C(21,11). C(21,2)=210

Posted from my mobile device
User avatar
AtifS
Joined: 20 Jan 2010
Last visit: 04 Jan 2017
Posts: 216
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 260
Status:Not afraid of failures, disappointments, and falls.
Concentration: Technology, Entrepreneurship
WE:Operations (Telecommunications)
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Wow!! whenever I see these kinda questions I got stunned but guys like bunuel,shrouded1, and gurpreet are there to help :). Nice method gurpreet :) and whenever a quant question is posted, shrouded1 is always there to explain it. Thank you! guys (I couldn't solve it but now i know how to solve it :) )
avatar
Kwintessens
Joined: 11 Sep 2012
Last visit: 21 Oct 2013
Posts: 5
Own Kudos:
11
 [4]
Posts: 5
Kudos: 11
 [4]
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
1
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Combinations of digits that sum up to 2 are either 1+1 or 2+0:

Combinations 1+1:

Double Digits
11 Total: 1

Triple Digits
101
110 Total: 2

Quadruple Digits
1001
1010
1100 Total: 3

So now the pattern emerges that for every N digit number, there are N-1 combinations summing up to two. The number of integers should be between 1 and 10^21, exclusive which means that the largest allowed integer does only have 21 digits, not 22 which means that the amount combinations with the largest amount of places is 20 (21-1).

We can thus calculate the total amount of integers that satisfy the question by calculating the set of consecutive integers: 1+2+3...+20 which is 210. However, we did not account for the combinations of 2 and 0 that sum up to two, we have to add them first:

Combinations 2+0:

Single Digit
2 Total: 1
Double Digits
20 Total: 1
Triple Digits
200 Total: 1

This pattern is obviously easier to comprehend and will account for an additional 21 combinations.

Hence: 210+21 = 232.

Sorry for my rusty English, I am not a native speaker :).
avatar
JeroenReunis
Joined: 29 Jan 2015
Last visit: 26 Apr 2015
Posts: 7
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 9
Concentration: Finance, Economics
GPA: 3.7
Posts: 7
Kudos: 2
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Hello all. This is my first question. Hopefully someone could clarify.

Q: How many integers between 1 and 10^21 are such that the sum of their digits is 2?

My answer: : Every level has 2 digits when there are two 1's in the number.

Level 1 : 11 = 1
Level 2 : 101 & 110 = 2
Level 3 : 1001 , 1010 & 1100 = 3
Level 4 : 10001, 10010, 10100 & 11000 = 4

So apparently every level you rise, 1 more integer with sum of digits 2 is added.

In this case,starting from the first "0" this number -> 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 (=10^21) has 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21 =231 which is exactly the correct answer.

However, the OFFICIAL answer mentions this solution:

10^21 is a 22 digit number, this means that all integers betweeen 1 and 10^21 will have at most 21 digits. Now for the purpose of this question we will say that all the numbers in this range have exactly 21 digits. We do this by including several leading 0's of a number. So e.g. we can write 10 million 1 hundred thousand as 000.000.000.000.010.100.000 Similarly we could write 20.000 as a 21 digit number. Now for a number to have the sum of its digits to equal 2 we need to consider 2 possible cases. Case 1 is that we have 2 1's in our number and then 19 0's. Case two is that we have one 2 and 19 zero's. To find out the number of 21 digits number with 19 zero's and two 1's. This we can do in 21C2 ways. If we plug this in the nCr formula we get 210. In Case two we have 21C1 = 21 ways. So 210 + 21 = 231.

Is my approach wrong?? I think the "official" answer is quite strange since 000.020.000.000.000.000.000 is not really an integer?

Any help is welcome, thanks in advance!!
User avatar
KarishmaB
Joined: 16 Oct 2010
Last visit: 23 Apr 2026
Posts: 16,442
Own Kudos:
79,403
 [1]
Given Kudos: 485
Location: Pune, India
Expert
Expert reply
Active GMAT Club Expert! Tag them with @ followed by their username for a faster response.
Posts: 16,442
Kudos: 79,403
 [1]
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
JeroenReunis
Hello all. This is my first question. Hopefully someone could clarify.

Q: How many integers between 1 and 10^21 are such that the sum of their digits is 2?

My answer: : Every level has 2 digits when there are two 1's in the number.

Level 1 : 11 = 1
Level 2 : 101 & 110 = 2
Level 3 : 1001 , 1010 & 1100 = 3
Level 4 : 10001, 10010, 10100 & 11000 = 4

So apparently every level you rise, 1 more integer with sum of digits 2 is added.

In this case,starting from the first "0" this number -> 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 (=10^21) has 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21 =231 which is exactly the correct answer.


The answer is exactly correct but you got lucky!

You will go till Level 20, not level 21 because level 20 will have all 21 digit numbers. Level 21 has 22 digit numbers but 22 digit numbers will be greater than 10^21 because 10^21 is the smallest 22 digit number.
Then how come you get the correct answer? Because you have to add 21 to the sum for these 21 numbers:
2
20
200
2000
20000
200000
....
There will be 21 such numbers. The sum of digits here too is 2.


JeroenReunis

However, the OFFICIAL answer mentions this solution:

10^21 is a 22 digit number, this means that all integers betweeen 1 and 10^21 will have at most 21 digits. Now for the purpose of this question we will say that all the numbers in this range have exactly 21 digits. We do this by including several leading 0's of a number. So e.g. we can write 10 million 1 hundred thousand as 000.000.000.000.010.100.000 Similarly we could write 20.000 as a 21 digit number. Now for a number to have the sum of its digits to equal 2 we need to consider 2 possible cases. Case 1 is that we have 2 1's in our number and then 19 0's. Case two is that we have one 2 and 19 zero's. To find out the number of 21 digits number with 19 zero's and two 1's. This we can do in 21C2 ways. If we plug this in the nCr formula we get 210. In Case two we have 21C1 = 21 ways. So 210 + 21 = 231.

Is my approach wrong?? I think the "official" answer is quite strange since 000.020.000.000.000.000.000 is not really an integer?

Any help is welcome, thanks in advance!!

THink about this: Is 020 an integer? Yes. It is 20. (0 on the left of an integer has no value.)
If we think this way, we don't have to consider the numbers with different number of digits separately. We can say that all number have 21 digits such that 0 can be placed in the beginning too.
00000...0000000002
00000...0000000020
00000...0000000200
00000...0000002000
...
The same numbers as given above can be written like this.

Makes sense?
User avatar
ScottTargetTestPrep
User avatar
Target Test Prep Representative
Joined: 14 Oct 2015
Last visit: 24 Apr 2026
Posts: 22,283
Own Kudos:
26,534
 [1]
Given Kudos: 302
Status:Founder & CEO
Affiliations: Target Test Prep
Location: United States (CA)
Expert
Expert reply
Active GMAT Club Expert! Tag them with @ followed by their username for a faster response.
Posts: 22,283
Kudos: 26,534
 [1]
Kudos
Add Kudos
1
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
PTK
How many integers between 1 and 10^21 are such that the sum of their digits is 2?

A. 190
B. 210
C. 211
D. 230
E. 231


If the sum of the digits of an integer is 2, then either a digit is 2 and the rest of the digits are 0 OR two digits are 1 and the rest of the digits are 0.

Case 1: One digit is 2 and the rest of the digits are 0.

Since the first digit of an integer can’t be 0, 2 must be the first digit. So between 1 and 10^21, we have: 2, 20, 200, 2000, etc. Since 2 = 2 x 10^0, 20 = 2 x 10^1, 200 = 2 x 10^2, …, and the last one being 2 x 10^20, we have 21 such numbers.

Case 2: Two digits are 1 and the rest of the digits are 0.

Notice that 10^21 is 1 followed by 21 zeros, i.e., a 22-digit number. However, it’s the smallest 22-digit number. Therefore, any number we have can only have at most 21 digits. Also, though we’ve mentioned that the first digit of an integer can’t be 0, let’s for the moment assume that it can be. Now assume that we have a 21-digit number (or code) that consists of 2 ones and 19 zeros. The number of ways to arrange 2 ones and 19 zeros is 21!/(2! x 19!) = (21 x 20 x 19!)/(2 x 19!) = 210. So there are 210 such codes and all these 210 codes are actually the numbers from 1 to 10^21 that have two digits of 1 and the rest of the digits as 0 if we omit all the initial 0s before the first digit of 1 (for example, consider 000000000000000000101 as the number 101).

Therefore, in the two cases combined, we have a total of 21 + 210 = 231 such numbers.

Answer: E
User avatar
Kinshook
User avatar
Major Poster
Joined: 03 Jun 2019
Last visit: 24 Apr 2026
Posts: 5,986
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 163
Location: India
GMAT 1: 690 Q50 V34
WE:Engineering (Transportation)
Products:
GMAT 1: 690 Q50 V34
Posts: 5,986
Kudos: 5,859
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Digits used = {0,1,2}

Number of digits in 10ˆ21 = 22
Integers will have upto 21 digits since we cannot take integers beyond 10ˆ21 and sum of 10ˆ21 is 1.

Integers between 1 and 10^21 are such that the sum of their digits is 2 = {2, 11, 20, 101, 110, 200, 1001, 1100, 2000, 10001, 10010, 10100, 11000, 20000,....}

Case 1: Digit 2 and remaining 0s are used.
Number of integers = 21 depends on which place 2 is placed, rest are all 0s.

Case 2: 2 Digit 1s and remaining 0s are used.
Number of integers = 21C2 = 21*20/2 = 210 depends on which 2 places 1s are placed, rest are all 0s.

Total such integers = 210 + 21 = 231

IMO E
Moderators:
Math Expert
109814 posts
Tuck School Moderator
853 posts