Crazy-ass math question. A little help?
There are 7 girls in a bus.
Each girl has 7 backpacks.
In each backpack, there are 7 big cats.
For every big cat there are 7 little cats.
Question: How many legs are there in the bus?
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17 Answers
56 cats per bag * 7 girls
392 cats per girl
10976 cat legs + 14 girl legs
10990 total legs
I agree with 10990. Unless of course the bus is in motion, which would imply a bus driver and 2 more legs. Also, we assume there are no amputees in the bunch…I’ve met more than one 3-legged cat.
Right. If they were all complete amputees, then there would be 0 legs.
Now ane, your task now is to find out how many arms are on that same bus.
Should school bus drivers be armed?
Why would a girl carry 7 backpacks?
The answer is
“Assuming there is no driver, each of the girls and each of the cats have all their legs (i.e. there are no missing or extra limbs on any of the girls or cats), and there are no boys, adults, tables, other animals, artificial legs or anything else which has a leg on the bus, there are 10,990 legs on the bus (14 human legs, 1372 big cat legs and 9,604 small cat legs), however there is not currently enough information to answer this question.”
I am so happy I do not have to do math homework any more.
Boy, Marina, I’m with you, and especially word problems. I know they are what turned me off to Math in the first place. I aced Logic in college, so it’s not that. I have this strange feeling that the teachers that handed out the word problems had no concept of how to explain to solve them either, which is why there was no explanation of how to go about it. The train ones were the ones that gave me a headache.
I just came back through the Seattle airport. The TSA agent asked me as I went through a question before I could pass. How many seconds were there in a year? I started calculating minutes times hours times days, etc. Anyone one out there know the correct answer? It’s actually very easy.
aneedle: If I were you, try asking the teacher to explain a word problem for you so that YOU can understand it. I’m really interested to see if they can. By that, I mean taking a non homework one and sitting down with you until you can do another similar one on your own and get the correct answer. If that particular teacher can’t, go find another one (or someone good at TEACHING Math and see if they can help you. I wish I’d thought of doing that. I didn’t get Math until my very last course and it was Math for Elementary School Teachers. We had this fabulous Jr. High teacher that could explain anything to our feeble minds. Wish I’d found him early on. Best wishes, I truly feel for you.
Who let the cat out of the bag????
A better question Scamp is who stuffed those cats into those 49 backpacks?
Ha ha! you’re right seesul! And why?
One time I saw a guy pull six cats out of a backpack so I wasn’t even questioning that.
G= Girls L=Legs BC=Big Cat LC=Little Cat B=Bags
7Gx2L=14(GL)
7Gx7B=49
49Bx7BC=343BC
342BCx7LC=2401LC
343BCx4L= 1372BCL
2401LCx4L=9604LCL
14GL+1372BL+9604LCL= 10990 Legs
Hope that wasn’t confusing….all my letters and such.
14 girl legs
1372 big cat legs
9604 little cat legs
10990 legs
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