Lower Elementary
Question: Rick goes to the park each day and counts the number of ducks swimming on the pond. On Sunday he counts 1 duck. On Monday he counts 2 ducks. On Tuesday he counts 4 ducks. On Wednesday he counts 8 ducks. If this pattern continues, how many ducks will Rick count on Friday?
Answer: 32 ducks
Note: Each day the number of ducks on the pond doubles from the previous day.
Upper Elementary
Question: A factory bottles 3 gallons of chocolate milk for every 7 gallons of regular milk. If the factory bottled 42 gallons of regular milk, how many gallons of chocolate milk were bottled?
Answer: 18 gallons
Note: Since the factory bottled 42 gallons of regular milk that means there are six groups, each with 7 gallons of regular milk bottled (42 divided by 7 = 6). Since there are 6 groups of regular milk. There will be six groups of 3 gallons each of the chocolate milk bottled. 6 x 3 = 18.
Middle School
Question: On her vacation at the beach, Lisa rented a bike for the day. The bicycle rental company charged a $7 rental fee and $4 for each hour the bike is rented. If Lisa paid $31 for the bike rental, how many hours did she rent the bike?
Answer: 6 hours
Note: The equation for the total cost of renting the bike is c = 7 + 4h, where c = total cost and h = hours bike is rented. To find the number hours the bike was rented, subtract the rental fee from the total cost 31 – 7 = 24. This gives us the total hourly cost for the bike rental. Divide this by the cost per hour to find the number of hours 24 / 4 = 6.
Algebra and Up
Question: A middle school is having an end of year raffle. There are 250 sixth grader students, 200 seventh grade students, and 125 eighth grade students. Every eighth grader gets 4 raffle tickets, each seventh grader gets 3 raffle tickets and each sixth grader gets a 2 raffle tickets. What is the probability that either a sixth grader or an eighth grader’s name will be chosen?
Answer: 5/8 or 62.5%
Note:Probability = number of ways to win/total number of ways things can happen. To find the probability, first find the total number of raffle tickets. There are 500 sixth grade raffle tickets (250 x 2), 600 seventh grade raffle tickets (200 x 3) and 500 eighth grade raffle tickets (125 x 4). The total number of raffle tickets is 500 + 600 + 500 = 1600. The probability can either be found by taking the total number of sixth grade and eight grade raffle tickets and out of the total raffle tickets, 1000/1600 = 5/8 or seeing that it’s the the whole minus the probability of the seventh grade name being drawn 1 – 600/1000 = 1 – 3/8 = 5/8.
