Tutor MathsGuru: Ask me for your burning Maths questions!

[starlight1968sg]

maths6a:

John was in the middle of a flight of stairs. He went up 3 steps, came down 5 and then up 8 and he was at the top. How many steps were there on the flight of stairs.

What is the ans? Mine is 12.

[SoWoW]

Hi need help again,


Question:-
Clara has some sweets. If she packs them in groups of 5, she will have 3 extra sweets. If she packs them in groups of 8, she will have 7 extra sweets. What is the minimum number of sweets clara has?

What is the correct method or working to show on the exam paper?
And is the answer 23 or 63? And why is that so?
thanks alot

[tianzhu]

maths6a:

Oh and can some one tell me how I can make attachments when I have diagrams to questions? Thanks

Hi

Please follow these steps

1) Do a print screen of the portion you want to upload.

2) Edit using Paint. Cut out the portion of the question you want to upload.

3) Save file in Pictures

4) Go to Flickr (Free sign up as member) or other storage sites. Upload file. Select biggest/medium size. Right click to copy URL of image.

5) Coming back to Kiasuparents forum, click insert image button.

Best wishes

[starlight1968sg]

SoWoW:

Clara has some sweets. If she packs them in groups of 5, she will have 3 extra sweets. If she packs them in groups of 8, she will have 7 extra sweets. What is the minimum number of sweets clara has?

What is the correct method or working to show on the exam paper?
And is the answer 23 or 63? And why is that so?
thanks alot

My girl would use Guess & Check method:
A: 1st situation ie groups of 5 then have 3 extra
B: 2nd situation ie groups of 8 then have 9 extra

Groups: 1,2,3,4,.....
A:8,13,18,23,28
(1*5+3,2*5+3,...)

B:15,23,...
(1*8+7, 2*8+7,...)

My ans is 23. :roll:

[SoWoW]

starlight1968sg:

SoWoW:

Clara has some sweets. If she packs them in groups of 5, she will have 3 extra sweets. If she packs them in groups of 8, she will have 7 extra sweets. What is the minimum number of sweets clara has?

What is the correct method or working to show on the exam paper?
And is the answer 23 or 63? And why is that so?
thanks alot

My girl would use Guess & Check method:
A: 1st situation ie groups of 5 then have 3 extra
B: 2nd situation ie groups of 8 then have 9 extra

Groups: 1,2,3,4,.....
A:8,13,18,23,28
(1*5+3,2*5+3,...)

B:15,23,...
(1*8+7, 2*8+7,...)

My ans is 23. :roll:

How to identify whether it is a guess & check method or \"gap and differences method\" to use?

[starlight1968sg]

SoWoW:

[How to identify whether it is a guess & check method or \"gap and differences method\" to use?

I questioned the purpose of Guess & Check method as a lot of times, one has to have some luck to solve this type of question.

Imagine somewhere down the line, I made a miscalculation and forever, am not going to get the correct answer.

[Dharma]

SoWoW:

Hi need help again,


Question:-
Clara has some sweets. If she packs them in groups of 5, she will have 3 extra sweets. If she packs them in groups of 8, she will have 7 extra sweets. What is the minimum number of sweets clara has?

What is the correct method or working to show on the exam paper?
And is the answer 23 or 63? And why is that so?
thanks alot

If arranged into
Group of 5 => R3 (remainder 3 sweets)
Group of 8 => R7

No of sweets Clara had + 2 sweets => multiple of 5
No of sweets Clara had + 1 sweet => multiple of 8


Find the smallest number which is a multiple of 5 but when divided by 8 gives a remainder of 1.

It is 25 => 25 divide by 8 = 3R1

Smallest number of sweets Clara had = 25 - 2 = 23
or
24 - 1 = 23

[maths6a]

Hey I noticed the flight of stairs question came back with 2 answers, 12 and 13.


@ @ @ % @ & @ @ * @ @ top
------------middle&
-------------------up 3 *
-----------down 5 %
---------------------up 8 (top)
so 12 isn’t it?


if there are 13, the middle will be in between two steps?

Or can we accept both answers as claimed by someone?

Thanks for enlightening us.

[Dharma]

maths6a:

Hey I noticed the flight of stairs question came back with 2 answers, 12 and 13.


@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

Hi maths6a,

Think the key here is ....

John was in the middle of a flight of steps. If he is in
the middle position, there must be an equal number of steps for John to reach the top or John to walk back down.

Total number of steps must be on ODD number ( 13 )

[maths6a]

SoWoW:

starlight1968sg:

[quote=\"SoWoW\"]Clara has some sweets. If she packs them in groups of 5, she will have 3 extra sweets. If she packs them in groups of 8, she will have 7 extra sweets. What is the minimum number of sweets clara has?

What is the correct method or working to show on the exam paper?
And is the answer 23 or 63? And why is that so?
thanks alot

My girl would use Guess & Check method:
A: 1st situation ie groups of 5 then have 3 extra
B: 2nd situation ie groups of 8 then have 9 extra

Groups: 1,2,3,4,.....
A:8,13,18,23,28
(1*5+3,2*5+3,...)

B:15,23,...
(1*8+7, 2*8+7,...)

My ans is 23. :roll:

How to identify whether it is a guess & check method or \"gap and differences method\" to use?[/quote]Answer is23 and not 63 because question asks for MINIMUM number of sweets.

How to identify if it's listing method of 'gap and difference' method:-
for listing questions, usually will say minimum or a range will be given, for example between 50 and 100. If in the above question, range is 50 and 100 then answer will be 63 and not 23.

For gap and difference question, the number of groups will be fixed so the question will be example,
Mr Tan gave some sweets to his pupils. If he gave each pupil 3 sweets, he would have x left and if he gave 5 sweets, then he would have y sweets left.
a) how many pupils are there?
b) how many sweets did he have?

or
If Mr Tan bought 5 books, he would have $x left and if he bought 8 books, he would be $y short, then in this case the price of each book is fixed so it's also a gap and difference question.
Questions asked can be
a) how much is each book?
b) how much money did he have?

Hope this can clarify the difference between these two types of questions.
Thanks to those who replied with how to post iamges.
Will try it out and then post the question I have with diagrams.