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JEE Main 2025 · Mathematics · Sequences and Series · medium

The number of common terms of the arithmetic progressions 3,7,11,…,407 and 2,9,16,…,709 is

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The number of common terms of the arithmetic progressions 3,7,11,…,4073,7,11,\ldots,407 and 2,9,16,…,7092,9,16,\ldots,709 is
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Answer: 14

A common term NN satisfies N≡3(mod4)N\equiv3\pmod4 and N≡2(mod7)N\equiv2\pmod7. Writing N=4a+3N=4a+3 and testing values with N≡2(mod7)N\equiv2\pmod 7, the smallest is N=23N=23 (23=4⋅5+323=4\cdot5+3 and 23=3⋅7+223=3\cdot7+2). Because lcm⁡(4,7)=28\operatorname{lcm}(4,7)=28, the common terms form the AP 23,51,79,…23,51,79,\ldots with common difference 2828. The first progression stops at 407407, so we need 23+28(k−1)≤40723+28(k-1)\le407, i.e. k−1≤38428=13.71k-1\le\dfrac{384}{28}=13.71, giving k−1≤13k-1\le13. The second progression extends to 709709, so 407407 is the binding limit. Hence there are 13+1=1413+1=14 common terms.
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