Monday, January 21, 2008

Can you solve this?

A friend of mine sent me this riddle and I thought it looked easy enough so I tried to solve it. It's trickier than it looks though... see what you can do.

There are 7 girls on 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?

This is a genuine math problem not a trick or a riddle. Just calculate it exactly as written. Don’t make assumptions like including a bus driver or anything like that. Have fun!!!

(Post your answer to see if you're correct. Maybe the first correct answer will win a prize. )

9 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Not sure if this right because I did it fast and I wanted to take a break from interims...but this is what I got....1582 :)

007 said...

I got 10,990. Do I have to show my work teacher? (That's counting the legs of the 7 girls.)

Shannon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shannon said...

I got 10,990 too! That was a GOOD problem!!! Thanks for the brain work.

Elizabeth said...

not sure how I was so way off...hehe told you I was doing it fast...also tried to do it without paper...I must have forgot one area...:) sad that I am a teacher..

007 said...

I really like your blog. I like math problems. Please don't ask me to diagram a sentence though. (I hope I spelled diagram correctly.)

Lauren said...

I got 10,990, too! It was definitely trickier than it looks!Thanks for getting my brain going this morning! It worked better than coffee..haha.

007 said...

So, do I get a prize? I did have the FIRST CORRECT answer! If not, then knowing I had the FIRST CORRECT answer is reward enough.

007 said...

At first, I thought Shannon's answer (after mine) was from Shannon Cox. Now that I know it is not, I would like to hear from Shannon Cox, the author of the math problem, in order to hear the official answer.