Each year Tony has one more fish than before because 2 - 1 = 1. In five years, he will have 5 more fish because 5 x 1 = 5. In five years he will have 7 fish because 2 + 5 = 7.
The answer: 7
Reverse engineering the question: Tony has two fish. Every year, his parents buy him two more, but one of them dies. How many fish will he have in five years?
Reasoning and answer: Brian read two books with 15 chapters, so he read 2 * 15 = 30 chapters. He also read a book with 20 chapters, bringing the total for the first three to 30 + 20 = 50 chapters. He then read a book with half the chapters of his cumulative total so far, so it had 50 / 2 = 25 chapters. In total, he read 30 + 20 + 25 = 75 chapters.
The answer: 75
What was the question?
Question: Brian likes to read books. He read one book that had 20 chapters, two books that had 15 chapters each, and one book that had half the chapters of the three previous books put together. How many chapters of books did Brian read?
Colton gave away 4 stickers * 3 friends = 12 stickers. Colton gave Mandy 2 + 12 stickers = 14 stickers. Colton gave Justin 14 stickers - 10 = 4 stickers. In total, Colton gave away 12 + 14 + 4 stickers = 30 stickers. Colton's number of total stickers at the end is 72 - 30 = 42 stickers.
The answer: 42
Reverse engineering the question: Colton had 72 dolphin stickers. He gave 4 stickers each to 3 friends. He also gave his friend Mandy 2 more than he gave his three friends total. And he gave Justin 10 less than Mandy. How many stickers does Colton have left?
Reasoning and answer: Let's say the number of books she had in the first week is x. After six weeks, Tracy has x + x * 10 = 99 books. Combining like terms, we get 11x = 99. Dividing both sides by 11, we find that the number of books Tracy had in the first week is x = 9.
The answer: 9
What was the question?
Question: Tracy has been collecting novels from her friends to donate to the Children For The Future charity organization. In the first week she collects a certain number of books. In the next five weeks, she collects ten times as many books as she did in the first week. How many books did she collect in the first week if she has 99 books now?
First find how many hours of runoff the sewers can handle: 240,000 / 1000 gallons / hour = 240 hours. Then divide that time by the number of hours per day to find how many days of rain the sewers can handle: 240 hours / 24 hours / day = 10 days.
The answer: 10
Reverse engineering the question: The sewers in Middleton can handle 240,000 gallons of run-off. Each hour of rain produces 1000 gallons of runoff. How many days of rain can the sewers handle before they overflow?
First find the total number of additional objects she learns to juggle: 2 objects / week * 5 weeks = 10 objects. Then add the initial number of objects she could juggle to find the total: 10 objects + 3 objects = 13 objects.
The answer: 13
Reverse engineering the question:
Jeanette is practicing her juggling. Each week she can juggle 2 more objects than the week before. If she starts out juggling 3 objects and practices for 5 weeks, how many objects can she juggle?