Lower Elementary:
Question: Jazmine has half as many candies at Danielle. Danielle has half as many candies as Phillip. If Phillip has 12 candies, how many candies do Jazmine, Danielle, and Phillip have altogether?
Answer: 21 candies
Solution: Phillip has 12 candies and Danielle has half as many candies at Phillip.
Half of 12 is 6, so Danielle has 6 candies. Jazmine has half as many candies as Danielle. Because Danielle has 6 candies, Jazmine has 3 candies. Adding together the amount of candies Phillip, Danielle, and Jazmine have gives us our answer.
12 + 6 + 3 = 21 candies.
Upper Elementary:
Question: It costs David $1.25 to wash a load of laundry and $1.00 to dry a load of laundry. If David has $7.00, how many loads of laundry can he wash and dry?
Answer: 3 whole loads
Solution: It costs $2.25 to wash and dry 1 whole load. So the question is “how many $2.25s can we fit into $7.00?”
$2.25 + $2.25 + $2.25 = $6.75
At this point if we add another load we would go over $7.00, so David can only wash and dry 3 whole loads.
Middle School:
Question: Wes scored an 85%, 92%, 95%, and an 80% on his last four tests. What would he need to score on his next test in order to have at least a 90% test average?
Answer: 98% or higher
Solution: The average is found by adding all the test scores together and then dividing by the number tests. Let the unknown test score be represented with an x.
(85 + 92 + 95 + 80 + x)/5 ≥ 90
(352 + x)/5 ≥ 90
352 + x ≥ 450
x ≥ 98
Algebra and Up:
Question: How many pounds of coal are required to run a 100-watt light bulb 24 hours a day for a year if 2,460 kilowatt hours are produced from burning a ton of coal? Round your final answer to the nearest whole pound.
Answer: 712 pounds
Solution: Notice that energy produced by coal is in kilowatt hours. To solve this problem we need to find how many kilowatts are needed to keep the light bulb lit for a year in hours. We start this problem by converting 100 watts to kilowatts. This is done by dividing 100 watts by 1000 which moves the decimal point over to the left three places to 0.100. Now we multiply 0.1 kilowatts by the number of hours in a year, 8760 (365 × 24).
0.1 × 8760 = 876 kWh
Next we divide 876 kWh by 2,460kWh to find how many tons of coal was used.
876 ÷ 2,460 ≈ 0.356 tons
Finally, we convert tons to pounds by multiplying 0.356 by 2000 pounds.
0.356 × 2000 = 712 pounds
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