Problem

1988 AJHSME Problem 16

Placing no more than one \text{X} in each small square, what is the greatest number of \text{X}'s that can be put on the grid shown without getting three \text{X}'s in a row vertically, horizontally, or diagonally?

\text{(A)}\ 2 \qquad \text{(B)}\ 3 \qquad \text{(C)}\ 4 \qquad \text{(D)}\ 5 \qquad \text{(E)}\ 6

[asy] for(int a=0; a<4; ++a) { draw((a,0)--(a,3)); } for(int b=0; b<4; ++b) { draw((0,b)--(3,b)); } [/asy]

Full credit goes to MAA for authoring these problems. These problems were taken on the AOPS website.


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Problem Tags: Counting and probability

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