[Question]A four-layer pyramid is being built with each layer having three times as many sandstone blocks as the layer above it. The top layer is a single block. How many sandstone blocks are in the pyramid?
[Answer]There are 1 * 3 = 3 blocks in the second layer. There are 3 * 3 = 9 blocks in the third layer. There are 9 * 3 = 27 blocks in the fourth layer. Thus, there are 1 + 3 + 9 + 27 = 40 sandstone blocks in the pyramid. The answer is 40.

[Question]Rebecca bought 22 items for her camping trip, including tent stakes, packets of drink mix, and bottles of water. She bought 3 times as many packets of drink mix as tent stakes. She also bought 2 more bottles of water than she did tent stakes. How many tent stakes did she buy?
[Answer]Let x represent the number of tent stakes. Drink Mix: 3x. Bottles of Water: x + 2. Total: x + 3x + x + 2 = 22. 5x + 2 = 22. 5x = 20. x = 4 tent stakes. The answer is 4.

[Question]James visits 20 houses to try and make a sale. He manages to sell something in every house. The next day he visits twice as many houses but only sold to 80% of houses. If he sold two things at each house in each of the two days, how many items did he sell?
[Answer]The second day he visited 20 * 2 = 40 houses. So he sold things at 40 * .8 = 32 houses. So in total he sold things at 20 + 32 = 52 houses. That means he sold 52 * 2 = 104 things. The answer is 104.

[Question]James buys 5 packs of beef that are 4 pounds each. The price of beef is $5.50 per pound. How much did he pay?
[Answer]
He bought 5 * 4 = 20 pounds of beef. So he paid 20 * 5.5 = $110. The answer is 110.