#word problem

Do Now:

Leonard the hazmat trucker does not get paid enough to afford proper home organizing equipment. Instead, he reuses empty boxes from his job.

Usually, Leonard commutes to his job by public transit (a cozy train ride coupled with a stress-relieving 3 mile bike ride), but he can't carry any boxes home that way. So today he drives home with 11 boxes stuffed into every bit of available space besides the driver's seat.

Silgan Dispensing Systems boxes have the following dimensions:

13"×19.5"×15.5"

Challenge: Can you solve this story problem without rereading it? Pay close attention!

Sally has a basket with eight apples. Five of the apples are red. Three of the apples are green.

Sally needs to deliver these red and green apples through the dark woods to the hungry kids in the refugee camp. The last person to go through the dark woods never returned.

On the trail, one priest stops Sally and offers her one magical ward in exchange for two apples, but Sally already has a couple magical wards and doesn’t need anymore. She tries to push past the priest, but he says he won’t let her go into the woods unless she gives him at least one apple. So Sally gives him one red apple, then holds up one middle finger to him as she enters the woods.

In the woods, Sally finds another basket of apples next to a skeleton. Oh, that’s what happened to the last person who went into the woods before Sally! The skeleton’s basket has two less red apples than Sally’s and two more green apples. Sally takes all the apples from the second basket and puts them into her own because the skeleton wasn’t going to need them anymore.

Suddenly, a giant hairy insectlike monster with two long antennae, six beady eyes and a long tail with a sharp point like a Scorpion’s (which Sally finds weird because Scorpions are arachnids; not insects) leaps out at her. Sally runs away as fast as she can while carrying her basket filled with a variable number of apples, but she trips and drops one green apple and two red apples.

After a while, Sally gets hungry. She knows these apples need to be delivered to the poor refugee kids, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to eat one. Sally picks up one red apple and gets ready to eat it. Then she sees a strange tree growing weird purple apples. There are seven purple apples on the tree. Sally picks a purple apple and eats it. It tastes strange and she feels good. Then she picks another and eats it too. Altogether, Sally ate two purple apples. Sally picks the other purple apples and puts them into her basket.

After trudging further into the woods, now feeling good, Sally finds a unicorn with three green apples stuck on its horn. She runs to it and picks the apples from the horn, putting them into her basket one by one. But then she realizes she’s hallucinating and those apples aren’t real. Silly Sally. That’s why you shouldn’t eat mysterious purple apples in dark forests.

Sally throws out the other purple apples. Drugging children is very illegal.

While still super high, Sally trips. Literally in addition to metaphorically. She loses zero green apples and zero red apples. But she hurts her leg and needs to pick up a stick to walk with. A green stick.

Then Sally hears the monster from earlier coming at her from behind. It’s going to eat her, and she can’t run away. So Sally takes her green walking stick and jabs it into one of the monster’s eyes, poking it out. The monster whimpers and runs back into the woods because the monster was a pussy.

But in the struggle, Sally dropped two green apples. But after some searching, she finds one of them and puts it back in her basket.

At last, Sally makes it to the refugees with the remaining red and green apples.

There are six children. Three of the children are dressed in red. Three of the children are dressed in green. The children in green like Sally’s  green walking stick. The children in red do not. Sally wants to divide the apples in a way that each kid gets an equal share of apples that matches the color they’re dressed in. Then Sally realizes that would be stupid and doesn’t do that.

Sally tells the story of her epic journey through the woods after passing out apples for all the kids, and all the children listen intently to Sally’s story.

Did you listen intently to the story? If so, can you tell me...

As he goes to the store, he discovers that ice cream cones are sold in packs of 12, and that the only brand of hot dog buns still available comes in packs of 7. Assuming that a pack of cones and a pack of hotdogs costs the exact same and that he wants to spend the minimum amount of money to buy a number of snacks that can be spread evenly between him and his friends, answer the following questions:

a. How many packs of 12 ice cream cones should Little Jimothy buy?

b. How many packs of 7 hot dog buns should Little Jimothy buy?

FROM THE VAULT! Mila Cuda, "Word Problem"