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Let’s discuss a tricky little question on remainders today. It involves a lot of different concepts – remainder on division by 5, cyclicity and negative remainders.
It actually is a little harder than your standard GMAT questions but the point is that it can be easily solved using all concepts relevant to GMAT. Hence it certainly makes sense to understand how to solve it.
Question: What is the remainder when 
is divided by 5? (here, 3 is raised to the power 
)
(A) 0
(B) 1
(C) 2
(D) 3
(E) 4
Solution: As we said last week, this question can easily be solved using cyclicity and negative remainders. What is the remainder when a number is divided by 5? Say, what is the remainder when 2387646 is divided by 5? Are you going to do this division to find the remainder? No! Note that every number ending in 5 or 0 is divisible by 5.
2387646 = 2387645 + 1
i.e. the given number is 1 more than a multiple of 5. Obviously then, when the number is divided by 5, the remainder will be 1. Hence the last digit of a number decides what the remainder is when the number is divided by 5.
On the same lines,
What is the remainder when 36793 is divided by 5? It is 3 (since it is 3 more than 36790 – a multiple of 5).
What is the remainder when 
is divided by 5? It is 1. Why? Because 46 to any power will always end with 6 so it will always be 1 more than a multiple of 5.
On the same lines, if we can find the last digit of 
, we will be able to find the remainder when it is divided by 5.
Recall from the discussion in your test prep curriculum, 3 has a cyclicity of 4 i.e. the last digit of 3 to any power takes one of 4 values in succession.
and so on… The last digits of powers of 3 are 3, 9, 7, 1, 3, 9, 7, 1 … Every time the power is a multiple of 4, the last digit is 1. If it is 1 more than a multiple of 4, the last digit is 3. If it is 2 more than a multiple of 4, the last digit is 9 and if it 3 more than a multiple of 4, the last digit is 7.
What about the power here 
? Is it a multiple of 4, 1 more than a multiple of 4, 2 more than a multiple of 4 or 3 more than a multiple of 4? We need to find the remainder when is divided by 4 to know that.
Using the binomial theorem concept, we know that
When this is divided by 4, the remainder will be the last term of this expansion which will be 
. A remainder of -1 means a positive remainder of 3 (as per negative remainders concepts). Mind you, you are not to mark the answer as (D) here and move on! The solution is not complete yet. 3 is just the remainder when is divided by 4.
So is 3 more than a multiple of 4.
Review what we just discussed above: If the power of 3 is 3 more than a multiple of 4, the last digit of 
will be 7.
So the last digit of is 7.
If the last digit of a number is 7, when it is divided by 5, the remainder will be 2. Now we got the answer!
Answer (C).
Interesting question, isn’t it?
