User: Hasan is packing up his apartment because he’s moving across the country for a new job. He needs to ship several boxes to his new home. The movers have asked that Hasan avoid putting more than a certain weight in pounds in any cardboard box. The moving company has helpfully provided Hasan with a digital scale that will alert him if a package is too heavy. Hasan is in the kitchen, and he fills a cardboard box with 38 dinner plates. When he checks the box, the scale reports his box is too heavy. Hasan knows each of his plates weighs 10 ounces. He removes a single plate from the box and checks the movers’ scale again. The scale reports his box is still too heavy. Hasan repeats the process again and again. When he has removed enough plates, the movers’ scale shows the box is now an acceptable weight for shipping. Hasan deduces that each shipping box can hold 20 pounds before the scale says the box is too heavy.  How many plates did Hasan need to remove from the shipping box?
Response: Let x be the number of plates removed from the box. Hasan figured out the movers' weight limit was 20 pounds. Since a pound is equal to 16 ounces, each box can hold 20 * 16, or 320 ounces. Each plate weighs 10 ounces, so the weight of the plates in the box after Hasan removes enough plates to satisfy the movers' weight limit is (38 - x) * 10 ounces. Since these two values are equal, we can write the equation (38 - x) * 10 = 320. Dividing both sides by 10 leaves 38-x = 32. Adding x to both sides gives 38 – x + x = 32 +x, or, 38 = 32 +x. Subtracting 32 from both sides gives the value of x, which is the number of plates removed from the box, 38 -32 = 32 + x – 32, or, 6 = x. Therefore the answer is 6
User: Alec is running for Class President. He thinks that if he can get three-quarters of the class to vote for him then there is no chance anyone else can beat him. Half of the class have already said they will vote for him but out of the remaining students, only 5 have said they are thinking about voting for him. He surveys the students who are thinking about voting for someone else, and changes his flyers to reflect the issues these students are concerned about. This results in a fifth of these students saying they'll vote for him. If Alec's class has 60 students and everyone who said they will vote for him does so, how many more votes does Alec need to reach his goal number of votes?
Response: To calculate Alec's goal number of votes, we need to know that 60 students / 4 = 15 students is equal to one-quarter of the class students. Alec's goal is therefore 15 students * 3 quarters = 45 votes. Half of the class said they will vote for him, so there are already 60 students / 2 = 30 votes. Another 5 students are thinking about voting for him which leaves a total so far of 30 + 5 = 35 votes. This means there are 60 students - 35 voting for Alec = 25 students not voting for Alec. A fifth of these decided to vote, so this is a further 25 students / 5 = 5 votes. Alec is therefore receiving a total of 35 + 5 = 40 votes. So he has missed his goal by 45 goal votes - 40 actual votes = 5 votes. Therefore the answer is 5
User: Peggy is moving and is looking to get rid of her record collection. Sammy says that he will buy all of them for 4 dollars each. Bryan is only interested in half of the records but will offer 6 dollars each for the half that he is interested in and 1 dollar each for the remaining half that he is not interested in with the hopes that he can resell them in bulk later. If Peggy has 200 records, what is the difference in profit between Sammy versus Bryan's deal?
Response: Sammy is offering to take the whole collection of 200 records and pay Peggy 4 dollars each for them which would net Peggy 200 * 4=800 dollars for her entire record collection. Bryan is willing to buy Peggy's entire record collection but at two different price points, half at one point and half at another. Half of Peggy's record collection is 200/2=100, which means that 100 records will sell for one price and 100 records will sell for another price. Bryan is willing to pay more for the half of the record collection that he is interested in so Peggy would net 100 * 6=600 dollars for the first half of her record collection. For the half of the collection that Bryan is just planning on reselling at a later date, he is willing to offer Peggy 100 *1=100 dollars to take off of her hands. In total Bryan is willing to offer Peggy 600+100=700 dollars for her entire record collection. If Sammy is offering 800 dollars to buy Peggy's entire record collection and Bryan is offering 700 dollars for Peggy's entire record collection, then Peggy's net profit would be 800-700=100 dollars more by taking Sammy's deal instead of Bryan's deal. Therefore the answer is 100
User: Angelo and Melanie want to plan how many hours over the next week they should study together for their test next week. They have 2 chapters of their textbook to study and 4 worksheets to memorize. They figure out that they should dedicate 3 hours to each chapter of their textbook and 1.5 hours for each worksheet. If they plan to study no more than 4 hours each day, how many days should they plan to study total over the next week if they take a 10-minute break every hour, include 3 10-minute snack breaks each day, and 30 minutes for lunch each day?
Response: Angelo and Melanie think they should dedicate 3 hours to each of the 2 chapters, 3 hours x 2 chapters = 6 hours total. For the worksheets they plan to dedicate 1.5 hours for each worksheet, 1.5 hours x 4 worksheets = 6 hours total. Angelo and Melanie need to start with planning 12 hours to study, at 4 hours a day, 12 / 4 = 3 days. However, they need to include time for breaks and lunch. Every hour they want to include a 10-minute break, so 12 total hours x 10 minutes = 120 extra minutes for breaks. They also want to include 3 10-minute snack breaks, 3 x 10 minutes = 30 minutes. And they want to include 30 minutes for lunch each day, so 120 minutes for breaks + 30 minutes for snack breaks + 30 minutes for lunch = 180 minutes, or 180 / 60 minutes per hour = 3 extra hours. So Angelo and Melanie want to plan 12 hours to study + 3 hours of breaks = 15 hours total. They want to study no more than 4 hours each day, 15 hours / 4 hours each day = 3.75. They will need to plan to study 4 days to allow for all the time they need. Therefore the answer is 4