Problem of the Week - Upper Elementary - Oct. 11, 2020 to Oct. 17, 2020

Upper Elementary: 

Question: Christine has a cube-shaped box that is 1 foot wide that is completely filled with 1-inch cube-shaped blocks. She takes three-quarters of them out. How many blocks are left in the box? 

Answer: 432 blocks

Solution:  A foot is 12 inches, so the box is 12 blocks wide × 12 blocks long × 12 blocks tall = 1,728 cube-shaped blocks in volume. If Christine takes three-quarters of the blocks out, that means that there’ll be one-quarter of them left in the box. So, we divide: 1,728 ÷ 4 = 432. There are 432 blocks left in the box.