Problem: at a restaurant , glasses are stored in two different - sized boxes . one box contains 12 glasses , and the other contains 16 glasses . if the average number of glasses per box is 15 , and there are 16 more of the larger boxes , what is the total number of glasses w at the restaurant ? ( assume that all boxes are filled to capacity . )
Rationale: "most test takers would recognize thesystemof equations in this prompt and just do algebra to get to the solution ( and that ' s fine ) . the wording of the prompt and the ' spread ' of the answer choices actually provide an interesting ' brute force ' shortcut that you can take advantage of to eliminate the 4 wrong answers . . . . we ' re told that there are 2 types of boxes : those that hold 12 glasses and those that hold 16 glasses . since the average number of boxes is 15 , we know that there must be at least some of each . we ' re also told that that there are 16 more of the larger boxes . this means , at the minimum , we have . . . 1 small box and 17 large boxes = 1 ( 12 ) + 17 ( 16 ) = 12 + 272 = 284 glasses at the minimum since the question asks for the total number of glasses , we can now eliminate answers a , b and c . . . . the difference in the number of boxes must be 16 though , so we could have . . . . 2 small boxes and 18 large boxes 3 small boxes and 19 large boxes etc . with every additional small box + large box that we add , we add 12 + 16 = 28 more glasses . thus , we can justadd 28 suntil we hit the correct answer . . . . 284 + 28 = 312 312 + 28 = 340 340 + 28 = 368 368 + 28 = 396 at this point , we ' ve ' gone past ' answer d , so the correct answer must be answer e . . . . . but here ' s the proof . . . . 396 + 28 = 424 424 + 28 = 452 452 + 28 = 480 final answer : e"
annotated_formula: multiply(multiply(16, const_2), 15)