Hi,
This is a 5th grade level question. I am a parent trying to keep up.

Don, Frank, Jenny, and Ken each come from one state, either Alaska, Maine, Montana, or Oklahoma. They each speak one primary language, either English, french, Russian, or Spanish. And they each have one of four pets, a chinchilla, a dog, a hamster, or a turtle.

Figure out which language and what pet each of the four people have, using the following clues.

  1. Frank needed a language book to write to the Alaskan.
  2. The kid from Oklahoma has a mammal for her pet.
  3. The Alaskan found his pet outside his door in a snow bank.
  4. The French speaking boy lives east of Oklahoma.
  5. The Russian speaking boy wants to write to the kid from Montana, but he doesn't speak his language.
  6. Don bought his pet in Peru.
  7. Ken does not own a hamster.
  8. The dog's owner wrote a letter in Russian to the kid in Oklahoma, but she could not understand it.
  9. Don had to travel west to meet Jenny. 10. Frank is learning Spanish at school.

Please help. Thanks!

Hi,

One way to approach this is to make a chart. Write each person's name, and then list the places they could live, the languages they could speak and the possible pets. You can work them all together, but I'll only do Jenny's and let you do the rest.

Jenny  Alaska  English  chinchilla
   Maine  French  dog
   Montana  Russian  hamster
   Oklahoma  Spanish  turtle

Now go through the clues and see what you can conclude or eliminate. If you can rule out something for that person put an X beside it. If three things in a column have an X beside them, then you know that the remaining one is what corresponds to that person. If you know something corrsponds to a particular person, put a Y beside it and then put an X beside that item for all the other people.

Let's look at the clues that help us with Jenny:

From (2), since there is only one femine name we conclude Jenny is from Oklahoma and does not own a turtle. Put a Y by Oklahoma and an X by turtle for Jenny. Put an X by Oklahoma for all the others.

From (4) we know Jenny does not speak French. Put an X by French.

Similarly from (5) SHE does not speak Russian or live in Montana. From (6) we know Don owns the chinchilla, so we put an X beside chinchilla for Jenny. Since we know she's the kid from Oklahoma, by (8) she doesn't speak Russian or own a dog.

So far, this is what we have for Jenny:

Jenny Alaska EnglishX chinchilla
  MaineXFrenchXdog
 XMontanaXRussian hamster
 YOklahoma SpanishXturtle

We can conclude she lives in Oklahoma and owns a hamster. Working with the others, we can show that one of the boys speaks English. Putting an X by English we see that Jenny speaks Spanish.

Now you try the rest. Have fun!
Judi.

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