2014 CEMC Gauss (Grade 7) Problems/Problem 2

Problem

Which of the following is closest to 100 on the number line?

$\textbf{(A)}\ 98\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 95\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 103\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 107\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 110$

We can calculate the distance from 100 for each of the numbers, and see which distance is the lowest:

$\abs {98 - 100} = 2$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg)

$\abs {95 - 100} = 5$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg)

$\abs {103 - 100} = 3$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg)

$\abs {107 - 100} = 7$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg)

$\abs {110 - 100} = 10$ (Error compiling LaTeX. Unknown error_msg)

Of the answer choices, the number with the smallest distance to 100 is $\boxed {\textbf {(A) } 98}$ .