Lower Elementary:
Question: Charlotte needs to be at school by 9AM. It takes her 20 minutes to dress and get ready, 15 minutes to eat breakfast, 5 minutes to pack her backpack, and 25 minutes to walk to school. What time should Charlotte wake up to be at school at 9AM?
Answer: 7:55AM
Solution: First, let’s find the total time it takes for Charlotte to wake up and get to school. 20 + 15 + 5 + 25 = 20 + 20 + 25 = 40 + 25 = 65. There are 60 minutes in an hour, so it takes Charlotte 1 hour and 5 minutes to wake up and get to school. Counting backwards, from 9AM to 8AM is one hour, so we need to go back 5 more minutes. Counting backwards 5 minutes from 8AM is 7:55AM. So, Charlotte needs to wake up at 7:55AM to get to school at 9AM.
Upper Elementary:
Question: In a fruit bowl, half of the fruit is honeydew, one third of the fruit is apple, and the remaining 7 pieces are watermelon. How many pieces of fruit are in the bowl?
Answer: 42 pieces
Solution: One way to solve this problem is to find the fractional part of the watermelon. One part can be found by taking a whole and subtracting the sum of the other parts. 1 – 1/2 – 1/3 = 6/6 – 3/6 – 2/6 = 3/6 – 2/6 = 1/6. The watermelon represents 1/6 of the fruit in the bowl. Since there are 7 pieces of watermelon in the bowl, there are 7 × 6 = 42 pieces of fruit in the bowl.
Middle School:
Question: Mark is trying to eat 50 grams of protein a day. For breakfast, he had 2 eggs. Each egg contains 6 grams of protein. What percent of his daily protein intake did he have for breakfast?
Answer: 24%
Solution: First we need to find the total amount of protein Mark ate for breakfast. If one egg contains 6 grams, then two eggs contain 12 grams of protein. Percent means for each hundred. If he is eating 50 grams a day, then his breakfast is 12/50 = 24/100 = 24% of his daily protein.
Algebra and Up:
Question: A deck of cards contains 50 cards. The cards are numbers from 1 to 50. What is the probability of drawing a prime number?
Answer: 3/10, or 30%
Solution: First, we need to find the number of cards that are prime numbers. The prime numbers from 1 to 50 are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, and 47. That means there are 15 cards that have a prime number. So, the probability of drawing a prime number is 15/50 = 3/10, or 30/100 = 30%
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