Selling lettuce - Math Central

HOME

Math Central

Quandaries & Queries

Question from Mike, a student:

Day 1 started with 80 heads of lettuce and x were sold.
Day 2 started with two times the number of heads of lettuce that was left
over. Again, only x were sold. Day 3 started with 3 times the number
of lettuce from what was left over from day 2 and all was sold. What
was the # of lettuce sold on each day?

Hi Mike,

I think you are missing something. I think that on day three x heads were sold and that is all that were left from day 2.

I'm going to use a table to show you how I think about this problem.

Day	Start	Sold	Remaining
1	80	x	80 - x
2	2(80 - x)	x
3		x	0

Each row of the table is an equation

Start - Sold = Remaining.

Fill in the two empty cells in the table. Write the equation for the last row. Solve for x. Check your answer.

Penny

Math Central is supported by the University of Regina and The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.