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Special
19-03-2010, 11:11 PM
A class has less than 30 students
Exactly 3/4 of them own footballs
Exactly 7/8 of them own football boots.

i)How many students are there in the class?
ii)How many students own both football boots and footballs?



Answers:


part i): 8, 16 or 24 part ii): 15 ..... I got this from the internet, dont slate if the answers are wrong - i didn't work them out

Black_Apalachi
20-03-2010, 03:23 AM
If you're going to just rob a random question off the internet, at least find an explanation for the answer. :P If the answer to i is a specific number, then surely the answer to ii must be specific also?

Soka
20-03-2010, 03:36 PM
thats what i think too black apachi...

for first part just find vales of n such that

3n/4, 7n/8 is an integer, as obviously can't have not a whole number of people.

this gives n = 8,16,24,32... but n<30 so only 8, 16, 24.

second part is so ambiguous, because we are assuming that there are 0 students who have nothing.

but,

if we take n = 24, which is most likely for a class size this will give the answer of 15.
if we take n = 16, this gives 10.
if we take n = 8, this gives 5.

Seatherny
20-03-2010, 08:24 PM
No offense to anyone but how the hell is that question the "hardest maths question ever" :S

DieselShaq
21-03-2010, 02:43 AM
First of all, this doesn't qualify for "Hardest Maths Question Ever".
Second, if there are 8 students in the class, how can there by 15 who own both footballs and football boots?

CrazyColaist
22-03-2010, 03:07 PM
i got the first question right.

Special
22-03-2010, 03:20 PM
First of all, this doesn't qualify for "Hardest Maths Question Ever".
Second, if there are 8 students in the class, how can there by 15 who own both footballs and football boots?

What did i say in the spoiler?


I got this from the internet, dont slate if the answers are wrong - i didn't work them out

DieselShaq
22-03-2010, 03:22 PM
If the answer to the second part is 15, then the answer to the first must be 24. If the answer to the first contains "or"s, then the answer to the second part must also contain "or"s.

And ignore my first point from my previous post. Essential information is missing from the question if you're working it out, making the question impossible to answer, hence "Hardest Maths Question Ever".

Special
22-03-2010, 03:30 PM
If the answer to the second part is 15, then the answer to the first must be 24. If the answer to the first contains "or"s, then the answer to the second part must also contain "or"s.

And ignore my first point from my previous post. Essential information is missing from the question if you're working it out, making the question impossible to answer, hence "Hardest Maths Question Ever".

Carry on if you will, i got this from the internet by typing 'Hardest maths question ever' I dont care if it is or not, nor that you're trying to explain it to me

DieselShaq
22-03-2010, 10:37 PM
I'm not slating the "wrong" answer here, since I don't know if the answer is wrong or not.

Black_Apalachi
23-03-2010, 07:21 AM
I bet I can make up an impossible, nonsensical maths question that is equally as hard :P

Papershop
23-03-2010, 09:20 AM
can someone tell me how you get 15 for the second question?

DieselShaq
23-03-2010, 09:36 AM
can someone tell me how you get 15 for the second question?
You guess and come up with a random answer. Seriously.

FlyingJesus
23-03-2010, 02:07 PM
Assuming the answer to i is 24 rather than a lower multiple of 8, there are 21 kids with boots and 18 with footballs. There is *** all way of finding out from that how many own both because while it's likely that people owning the balls will also have boots there's still plenty of possibility that that's not the case - the answer can be 18 at most but also could potentially be 15 (as per the given answer in the spoiler) or anywhere in between.

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