Archive for January, 2018

The Opera Tickets

Tuesday, January 30th, 2018

Sam Finkelstein bought some tickets for Puccini’s opera La Bohème starring the famous diva Lorelei von Morgenstern to sell them at a profit when tickets were scarce as Saturday approached.

He bought 100 tickets, balcony box seats at 120 dollars, some good seats in the middle of the hall at fifty dollars and some normal seats at 25 dollars.

Can you work out how many tickets of each type Sam Finkelstein bought?

Jewelry Shopping

Saturday, January 27th, 2018

Miss Frilly Donahue went to do some shopping for jewelry as she wanted to expand her collection. Frilly had just bought a fancy new multi-level jewelry box with a large mirror.

Miss Frilly Donahue went to the Kasbah where her attention was caught by the expansive jewelry shop of Mustafa ben Asheesh, in which all sorts of fancy items were displayed.

Frilly saw twenty pairs of lovely earrings, ten exciting necklaces and fifteen exquisite armbands she liked. Miss Donahue also spotted six enticing combo sets of earrings and necklaces, seven breathtaking combo units of necklaces and armbands, and ten dazzling combo groups of earrings, necklaces and armbands.

Frilly was looking for the perfect earring, necklace and armband combination as she would be attending the Avant Garde Designer’s Ball in a week, and wanted to make a stunning entrance.

Mustafa ben Asheesh noticed her indecision and the extensive selection of jewelry she had selected for perusal. As it was 1 pm, he advised Frilly Donahue that he would be closing the shop at five pm.

It seems that Frilly did not hear him.

If Frilly Donahue used five seconds to examine each way of selecting an earring, necklace and armband, how long did she need to check them all out?

Did she make it before the shop closed?

The Egg Dozens

Monday, January 22nd, 2018

Mr. Jones, the math teacher, was told by his wife Molly to go to farmer Elmer Sudd’s grocery store to buy some eggs as she wanted to bake a cake for their son Seymour’s birthday.

Mr. Jones puttered out of the house in his loafers and headed for Elmer Sudd’s store by the farm.

“Mr. Sudd, do you have some eggs for sale,” inquired Mr. Jones politely, adjusting his thick-lensed glasses on his bulky nose.

“Mr. Jones, you flunked my son Homer in math. That’s why he didn’t graduate from high school this year,” growled farmer Sudd, fixing Mr. Jones with beady eyes.

Mr. Jones shuffled uncomfortably in front of the shop counter and began polishing his glasses with great concentration, checking the level of polish against the ceiling light every now and then.

“Yes, well… that was very unfortunate,” stammered Mr. Jones, “but your son Homer got all the problems wrong on the final exam, and spilled ink on my shirt – so I had no choice,” he apologized.

“But, please, do you have any eggs for sale?” repeated Mr. Jones. “My wife will be very angry if I show up without any eggs for the cake which she is baking for my son Seymour’s birthday,” appealed Mr. Jones.

“Is that so, Mr. Jones. I do have some eggs and you can have them if you can solve a problem I read in Reader’s Digest that should be simple for a math teacher,” said farmer Sudd with malicious grin.

“Very well, what’s this problem?” inquired Mr. Jones timidly.

“The product of the eight divisors of the number of eggs I have is 331776,” said farmer Sudd with a smile twisted halfway to his ear.

“If you can tell me how many dozen eggs I have, I will sell them to you for a premium price, Mr. Jones, so you can make your wife happy.”

Mr. Jones stopped polishing his glasses, pulled out a Casio calculator and tapped the keys ten times, after which he announced the correct dozen of eggs to farmer Sudd.

“Hmmm… Homer, get ready, I’m sending you to summer school to learn math,” announced farmer Sudd to Homer skulking in a corner.

Can you work out how many dozen eggs farmer Sudd had?

The Very Large Book

Sunday, January 7th, 2018

A publisher issued a very large book and was told that the printer had used 6699 symbols for the page numbers, including 13 pages with Roman numerals in the front matter of the book.

Can you work out how many pages there were in the book?


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