Valentine’s Math Quiz
All the Math you will do for Love
By TheMathMom for The Boston Globe
TheMathMom.com : Life is a Puzzle, Solve it with Numbers.
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Puzzle 1: Cake for his ex?
You were planning to make a little Valentine's Day cake for you and your
boyfriend, but he's just told you that his ex-girlfriend and her three roommates
are joining you for dessert. (Don't worry, they're just friends.) How can you
proportionally adjust the recipe for this crowd?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Pick one answer:
If #4 is not an option then go for #2.
Triple the recipe. You'll have six people eating.
double the recipe
Your recipe is for two people. Tripling it will
triple the recipe
get you to the amount you need to keep the
quadruple the recipe
same portions.
dump all the cake butter over his head
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Puzzle 2: A heel dilemma.
You are picking up an outfit for your Valentine's date. What heel should you go
for? If your date is 6-foot tall and your height is 5-foot-7, how high should your
heel be for you to dance shoulder-to-shoulder with your date?
Pick one answer:
1. 3”
2. 4”
3. 5”
Correct answer is 5”.
There are 12 inches in a foot.
6’= 5’12”.
5’12” – 5’7” = 5”
5” would get you to be the same height as your date.
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Puzzle 3: An engagement ring.
Dude, did you hear the latest gossip about the famous model-singer couple? He
was about to propose to her on the Valentine's Day, but she told him she wants a
square ring. Jeweler told him it will be more expensive to have a square ring that
fits as snuggly as a circular ring without stretching it.
Do you think the jeweler is taking advantage of him?
Pick one answer:
1. Yes, he's totally being taken advantage of. The jeweler can just use pliers to
make square out of the circular ring he bought.
2. No, the jeweler is not scamming. A square around a finger would be bigger
than a circle.
The answer is: No, the jeweler is not taking advantage of him. The square should
contain the original ring's circle inside. You can find the circumference of a circle
using the diameter multiplied by Pi, which is about 3.14. The size around a square is
four times the any of the sides. So the circle would be roughly 3.14 x the diameter.
The square would be larger at 4 x the diameter.
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Puzzle 4: Lovely reflections.
You are prepping yourself to a Valentines night in front of a mirror, winking to
your reflection, and singing into a hair brush: "Tonight's gonna be a good
night!" Your spouse opens the door and sneaks in to tell you to hurry. Suddenly
you see this black crawling creature on the right pocket of your spouse's
reflection on the mirror. The kids left the tarantula’s cage open again!
Do you scream:
1. Careful: your right pocket!
You should be screaming: Careful: your
2. Careful: your left pocket!
left pocket! Mirrors do a horizontal
3. Smash the tarantula on your husbandreflection, so what appears on the right
pocket of your reflection is on the left
4. with the hairbrush risking killing both.
pocket of the real you.
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Puzzle 5: Valentine’s
chocolates.
You want to bring a box of chocolates to the office. There are 12
candies in the box -- three fudge, three almond clusters, three
caramels, and three coconut -- and you would like each person to get
three. Then you remember: Mildred is allergic to nuts, Jack has
dentures and can't eat chewy foods, your boss would like all the
fudge, and nobody will touch the coconut.
How many boxes do you need?
A: 1
B: 2
C: 3 or more
Go for three or more: If everyone is going to get three (and your boss gets all
the fudge ones), then one box definitely won't cut it. After figuring in
everyone's issues in box two, and keeping in mind you'd like some, you must
go to three boxes for everyone to get three or more candies.
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Puzzle 6: Love & Diamonds.
All those commercials convinced you that nothing says "I love you“ better than
diamonds. You decide to venture into the Kingdom of Diamonds outlet and
splurge on one for your girlfriend. The store advertised a 30 percent off sale for
Valentine's Day. You see that there is a ring that is 1/2 off. You figure, given the
additional 30 percent discount you would get the ring for only 20 percent of the
original price. True or false?
Pick one answer:
1. True – you will get the ring for 20% of the price.
2. False – you will pay a different amount.
Correct answer is False: Assume that ring is $100. Half off is $50. Thirty
percent from $50 is $50 x 0.3 = $15. This is 15 percent of the original
price.
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Puzzle 7: A very large present.
Now, in the post-Super bowl and pre-Oscar screen relaxation, you decided
to make a special present for your loved one for Valentine's Day and buy a
new flat screen 54-inch TV. Your old TV is also HD but 27-inches. In the
Valentine's card, you want to write how many times larger the area of the
new television is.
Is it larger by:
27”
1. 2xCorrect answer is: 4 times.
2. 4xTV dimension is defined from its
54”
3. 8xdiagonal, therefore a 27” diagonal TV
is ¼ of the 54” diagonal TV.
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Puzzle 8: Vow renewal.
Your wedding anniversary was in January of 2012. This Valentine's
atmosphere put you in a romantic mood, and you decided to plan a trip
to Hawaii and renew your vows for your next year’s Silver Anniversary.
You call a travel agent, but you don't have the calendar with you.
What day of the week would your wedding anniversary be on in January
2012, if this year it was on Friday?
Pick one answer:
1. Friday
2. Saturday
3. Sunday
The answer is Sunday: If you divide the # of days in a leap
year, 366, by seven (the number of days in a week) you
get a remainder of two. As a result every date shifts two
days forward each leap year. Therefore, your silver
anniversary falls on Sunday in 2013.
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Puzzle 9: Kill or kiss?
Your husband is telling you that he is going to spend Valentine's eve
with his only brother's wife's only brother-in-law's wife. Who is he
spending the night with?
1.
2.
3.
4.
You
Your sister
Your mom
Crazy Aunt Mildred
The answer is You: Your brother's wife is your
sister-in-law. Your sister-in-law's only brotherin-law must be your husband. Your husband's
wife, in this case, would you be you.
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