Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Solving Historical Elementary Mathematics Problems #4

Sorry that I didn't give you all more questions to solve. I was not in Singapore the last few days.

For the last question, most of you get the correct answer which is 875ml. I like the method which most of you used to solve which was "working backwards".

Now for the next question......(more challenging)


A group of gardeners went to cut the grass of 2 plots of land. The larger plot of land was twice the area of the smaller plot. After working on the bigger plot of land for half a day, one half of the gardeners went to work in the smaller plot of land. The rest stayed on the bigger plot and finished cutting the grass in the evening. However, by evening, an area of grass remained uncut in the smaller plot of land. One gardener then took one day to complete the job of cutting the area of uncut grass in the smaller plot of land

How many gardeners were there?

(Leo Tolstoy, 19th century, Russia)

17 comments:

  1. whoa .
    this is hard .
    i read halfway .
    i go dizzy .

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  2. is this guess and check, Mr Soh??

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  3. Zhi Xian and Zhi TingJune 18, 2009 at 6:15 PM

    Still thinking...

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  4. This question is not easy right? So far none of you can give me an answer. However, I believe you will take up the challenge and find the answer.

    Hazique,
    The answer is not 6 and you can try guess and check if you want. However, you will need to do a lot of reasoning to get the answer.

    Hint: You can think in terms of rate. Example: If half a group of gardeners plus a group of gardeners can cut the bigger plot of land in one day....then.....

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  5. S'pore may have its first unlinked local H1N1 flu case!

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  6. But I think it can be any answer.

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  7. There are 77 H1N1 cases in Singapore now. What should I do as they say that they might be getting ready to let pupils to do E- Learning!!!

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  8. Zhi Xian and Zhi TingJune 19, 2009 at 11:16 AM

    The answer to the question must be a multiple of 2.

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  9. It's a multiple of 2 but that's not good enough. Extra hint for u all. It is less than 15 gardeners. Hope to see a solution here soon.
    By the way, we are doing sort of e-learning here too. :)

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  10. Zhi Xian and Zhi TingJune 19, 2009 at 5:35 PM

    Is the answer 8 or 14?

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  11. Mr Soh, for the flawless vid, the thing was like this:
    Simon: So, what's the ambition?
    Flawless: To chase the dream of the competition.

    Ok can you explain further about their reply cause I don't really understand the meaning...

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  12. Just to ask, can we have a class t-shirt?

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  13. class tee ? for what ?

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  14. Hi Yueling,

    I remember they said "chase the dream and not the competition"

    My interpretation of their statement is this:
    They are not really concerned if they win the competition or not. However, they chase their dream which is to dance well and perform for the audience. If they do not win the competition, they will continue to pursue their dream.

    So what can we learn from this statement? How do we apply this philosophy in our lives? Can anyone give an example?

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  15. Um..If we lose in a competition,we should just take it as an experience and continue to pursue our dreams.Is this right?

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  16. i think the answer is eight

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