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29 Comments

  1. FishOrMan
    FishOrMan February 20, 2016 10:50 am

    14. Because there is only one half of the coconut and only three bananas.

  2. Claire
    Claire February 20, 2016 10:59 am

    Close. But no banana. 😉

    I’m off now. Battery’s about out and I forgot to bring the power supply. So you’ll have to hash this out on your own. Probably back Tuesday.

  3. Bear
    Bear February 20, 2016 11:10 am

    If it isn’t 14, you’ll need to explain it.

    30/3=10: 1 apple = 10
    10+8 bananas =18, so 1 banana has to represent 1
    4 – 2 coconut halves = 2, so each coconut half represents 1
    So 1 (1 coconut half) + 10 (1 apple) + 3 (3 bananas) sure looks like 14. Unless the answer is supposed to be something like, “ingredients for Banana, Apple and Coconut Crumble.

  4. Claire
    Claire February 20, 2016 11:12 am

    14, Yes, 14.

    Dimwittedness deleted.

  5. Joel
    Joel February 20, 2016 12:31 pm

    Okay. I kept getting 16, which I knew wasn’t right. Didn’t see the thing with the bananas.

  6. MamaLiberty
    MamaLiberty February 20, 2016 1:25 pm

    All I see are some ingredients for a slightly strange fruit salad… but then, I never did have any patience for the kind of math problems that started out with trains going different directions. 🙂 Got introduced to calculators in the first college lab class… I can manage those, given enough time. But no coconuts, thanks. LOL

  7. parabarbarian
    parabarbarian February 20, 2016 4:45 pm

    I’m late to this party and it did take me a few seconds to see it (curse you old age!). At least I arrived at the correct answer without exercising my common core math skills.

  8. Daylan Darby
    Daylan Darby February 20, 2016 4:48 pm

    With the explicit math symbols (+/-) shown how can we assume that 2 coconut halves together represent ‘+’?

  9. Coyote Hubbard
    Coyote Hubbard February 20, 2016 5:22 pm

    Daylan, its simple. A whole coconut = 2, so the math expression could have been + (whole coconut) and it would have been the same. Sheesh, I thought everyone knew a whole coconut was 2. 8-P

  10. Iwoots
    Iwoots February 20, 2016 5:31 pm

    ARGH!!!!

    This is why people like me should avoid things like this.
    Not only did I not notice the # in the last bunch of bananas; but I forgot KISS. I over analyzed; and ended up with an answer of 15.41 because I thought the two coconuts halves together meant that I should use the square root key on the calculator.

  11. Jim B.
    Jim B. February 20, 2016 5:31 pm

    With a half a coconut, an apple and 3 bananas, the answer is 5. I would’ve answered 4 but I managed to see the last hidden banana.

    Child’s view literally.

  12. UnReconstructed
    UnReconstructed February 20, 2016 8:30 pm

    yeah, I keep coming up with 14, also.

    in the second equation, 8 bananas = 8 because we know an apple is 10

    so one banana = 1

    third equation, 4-(2 coconut halves)=2, so one coconut half is 1

    so in the last equation, 1 coconut half +10+3 bananas=14

  13. UnReconstructed
    UnReconstructed February 20, 2016 8:33 pm

    oh duhhh. I didn’t refresh before I posted that.

    dum dum dum.

  14. FishOrMan
    FishOrMan February 20, 2016 8:42 pm

    To expound on the reasoning: an apple is worth at least five to ten times everything else. (Slight bias in being from Washington State.)

  15. jerry the geek
    jerry the geek February 20, 2016 9:54 pm

    Two.
    Because motorcycles don’t have doors.

  16. Unclezip
    Unclezip February 20, 2016 10:26 pm

    My slide rule got stuck. Can I have a do over?

  17. Ron Johnson
    Ron Johnson February 21, 2016 3:49 am

    Feeling pretty stupid right now.

  18. Bill St. Clair
    Bill St. Clair February 21, 2016 4:41 am

    I didn’t notice the TWO coconut halves in the third line until I got 16 and looked at somebody else’s answer. It’s not even really three variables in three linear equations. Beyond trivial.

    apple = x
    banana = y
    coconut half = z

    3x = 30
    x + 2y = 18
    y – 2z = 2

    x = 30/3 = 10
    y = (18 – x)/2 = (18-10)/2 = 4
    z = (y-2)/2 = (4 – 2)/2 = 1

    x + y + z = 10 + 4 + 1 = 15

  19. tired dog
    tired dog February 21, 2016 6:38 am

    What are you guys smoking ? apple = 10 ?? hidden bananas ??? Uno mas cerveza por favor !

  20. Laird
    Laird February 21, 2016 9:47 am

    Bill St. Clair is the only one to get it right. The key is the bananas: it’s not 8 bananas in step two, it’s two bunches/> of bananas. The proper unit of measurement of bananas here is the bunch, not the unit. So the correct answer is 15.

    Anyway, everyone knows that the real correct answer (to this and everything) is 42.

  21. Jim B.
    Jim B. February 21, 2016 10:17 am

    Do I feel like a dunce. I thought this is one of those tests that showed how young kids think.

  22. Glacier-Blue
    Glacier-Blue February 21, 2016 12:27 pm

    The true answer is 15.

  23. david
    david February 21, 2016 2:40 pm

    Well, I came to the 15 answer, but I see it’s already been posted here.

  24. Jim B.
    Jim B. February 21, 2016 3:55 pm

    Now that I see what the values are assigned to, the bananas are key, the values of each bananas is one, not 4 per bunch.

    Take a good look at the final banana bunch, there’s not four bananas, it has 3 therefore with one coconut half having a value of just 1 and the apple being 10 the total has to be 14.

  25. capn
    capn February 21, 2016 5:18 pm

    I have always hated these kinds of problems.

    What I see when I look at the illustrations:
    Row one = Three apples = snacks for three meals
    Row two = One apple and eight bananas = snacks for five meals
    Row three = 1 coconut (split) and four bananas = fruit for a pitcher of daquiris
    Row four = half a coconut one apple and three bananas = the makings for a fruit salad … now where did I put the kool whip?

    What?

  26. JimBrook
    JimBrook February 22, 2016 6:51 am

    14 – Bear explained it. I got it only after seeing the statement that it is not 16 and looking at the number of bananas in a clump more closely. It took me probably over a minute to get it. Darn it, Bear beat me to it, although I did not look at the comments until I arrived at the answer of 14.

  27. Lady Locust
    Lady Locust February 23, 2016 10:58 am

    Is it 12? -2 for coconut.

  28. Lady Locust
    Lady Locust February 23, 2016 10:59 am

    A-ha! Just looked.

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