First day in kindergarden
- So how was the first day in kindergarden?
- Boring! said Pat.
- Booooring! joined Chris.
- How come? asked the concerned father.
- 12/17 of the other kids were girls! sighed Pat.
- Really! I found that 5/7 of the other kids were girls!
How many girls and boys were in the kindergarden, and what are the genders of Pat and Chris?
Problem source: dansmath@home.
December 13th, 2007 at 6:00 am
There are 35 in the class, of whom 25 are girls, including Pat. The last speaker is the teacher. This might or might not be Chris. I see no way to assess Chris’s gender.
Alternatively, there are 120 in the class (a huge class!) of whom 85 are girls (including Pat) and 35 are boys (including Chris).
BTW kindergarten (from the German word).
December 13th, 2007 at 6:31 am
kindergarden : kindergarten = 1 : 2
To check if ‘kindergarden’ was a word I googled and found 2 million hits. ‘kindergarten’ gave 4 million.
However, I yet haven’t found one online dictionary that includes ‘kindergarden’. They all include ‘kindergarten’.
“Urban Dictionary is a slang dictionary with your definitions.” When I search for ‘kindergarden’ they say:
“kindergarden isn’t defined yet, but these are pretty close:
… xilophone
A musical instrument played by small children in kindergarden.”
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kindergarden
December 13th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
kindergarden : kindergarten = 1 : 2?
wow, what an abuse of a proportion.
i thought that kindergarden : kindergarten = r, but maybe i’m thinking too mathematically.
December 31st, 2007 at 10:40 pm
First check if the proportions of equal..if they were, then we would not be able to find anything. Chris gives a larger proportion, so Chris is a boy and Pat is a girl.
(7/5)N=(12/17)N+1 ; where N is the (total number of students – 1)
So, there are 120 students, 85 of them girls and 35 of them boys.