Five winners for first Math Mania contest

Math Mania started in September and our readers got off to a good start. Five kids who submitted entries gave correct answers for all six of the Mania problems.

Every one of the other entrants got at least one question correct. And there were lots of kids who answered five of the six correctly.

Since this was the first month for the Math Mania contest, Young Saint Louis.com will be overly generous with the Border's book certificate prizes.

Ordinarily, we had planned to award no more than three $10 certificates. If there were more than three who got all of the answers correct, we were going to have a drawing to see which three got the certificates.

But, we altered the rules for this introductory contest. All five winners will get certificates.

The winners, who are all from St. Louis, are Beth Johnston, 12; Megan Kaiser, 12; Claire Meyer, 14; Emily Pfitzinger, 12, and Kathryn Shirrell, 13.

Here are the answers to the September questions:

 

September Math Mania

1. Study the following sequence until you discover the pattern. Then, fill in the missing number.

Answer: 8. Each number is equal to the product of the digits of the preceding number.

 

2. If ab = a + 3, then find 43

Answer: 31.

43 = 4 + 3
        = 4 + 27
= 31

3. A leak in the roof allows 2 drops through the first day, 4 drops through the second day, 8 drops the third day, etc. When will the 500th drop fall thorough?

Answer: 8th day. Continue to add the total drops each day until you meet or exceed 500.

2+4+8+16+32+64+128+256=510

 

4. Replace X, Y, and Z with different single-digit numbers to make a true equation.

XX

+ XX

YYZ

Answer:

55

+ 55

110

Since the sum is a three digit number, the two addends must be 55 or greater. Luckily, you need not go any further!

 

5. If 5 strawberry pickers can pick 5 strawberries in 5 seconds, how many strawberry pickers would it take to pick 60 strawberries in a minute?

Answer: 5 strawberry pickers. If you give the same 5 people 12 times the amount of time, they can pick 12 times the amount of strawberries.

 

6. The sum of the squares to two numbers is four less than the sum of one hundred plus half a hundred. What are the two numbers?

Answer: 5 & 11. Four less than the sum of one hundred and half a hundred is 146. Thus, you need to find two perfect squares whose sum is 146. They happen to be 121 and 25. Eleven squared is 121 and 5 squared is 25.