Question

Three squirrels, Steve, Keith and Benjamin, have spent all day collecting nuts. At the end of the day they are very tired and go to bed. During the night, Steve wakes up and eats a nut. He then decides to take half of the remaining pile and hides it before going back to sleep. Keith then wakes up. He too is hungry, so he eats a nut. He also takes half of the remaining pile and hides it before going back to sleep. Finally, Benjamin wakes up, eats a nut and hides half of the remaining pile. In the morning, all of the squirrels share the remaining nuts equally between them and each goes off with four more nuts. Each squirrel then eats all the nuts he now us. How many nuts has Steve eaten in total?

Answer 1

Just start doing the math.
total nuts = x
Steve eats 1, leaving x-1, saves (x-1)/2
That leaves (x-1)/2 nuts
Now do the next step, and the next till you get down to a known amount.

Answer 2

28

Answer 3

Let's work backwards to find the original total number of nuts. Each squirrel went off with four more nuts, so before they did so, there were 12 more nuts in total. Therefore, after they shared the remaining nuts equally, there were 40 nuts in total.

Before Benjamin took half of the remaining pile, there were 80 nuts (double 40). Before Keith took half of the remaining pile, there were 160 nuts (double 80). And before Steve took half of the remaining pile, there were 320 nuts (double 160).

So, Steve ate one nut at night and hid half of the remaining 319, which is 159.5. Since he cannot give half a nut to anyone, we can assume that he rounded down and hid 159 nuts.

Therefore, Steve ate a total of 1 + (320-159)/2 = 81 nuts.

Answer 4

81

Answer 5

Correct! Steve ate a total of 81 nuts.