Thread: Basic Word Problem ("Bigger Than" / "The Size Of")

If I say, "When Cat A is full grown, it will be one and a half times bigger than Cat B's current size." How would I say that in percentage?

I know this should be pretty simple, but I'm either having a brain fart, am over-analyzing the words, or have just been using this expression wrong for far too long. It's like a grade school word problem, but it really is getting the best of me. It feels more like a grammar issue than math. Anyway...

For the sake of having some numbers in here, I'll just say that Cat B is 4lbs. Without putting much though into it, I assumed I was saying that Cat A will grow up to be 50% bigger than Cat B, and therefore will be 6lbs when full grown. But I'm thinking now that my original statement implies that Cat A will actually be 10lbs when full grown. (A=1.5B + B)

So in percentages are these both equivalent statements of the original word problem?: [Cat A will be 250% the size of Cat B.] [Cat A will be 150% bigger than Cat B.]

If I were to go to a hardware store with a wooden dowel and hand it to an associate and say, "Please cut me another dowel one and a half times bigger." Without saying "than" I feel like I'm just asking for another dowel that is 50% bigger than the original. But perhaps I should be saying, "Please cut me a dowel one and a half times the size of this one."

Try not to rip on me so much, folks...i hate that this is confusing for me at all.

its pretty vague phrasing to be honest and if someone said it to me i would ask them what they meant.

If that isn't an option, consider how you would interpret this: "when can A was full grown it will be 1 times bigger than Cat B".

Continue by analogy...

Thanks, SpringFan25.

That got me thinking that perhaps the "bigger than" in this sort of statement can be interpreted differently because it can either mean that addition is required in the equation, or that "bigger than" is only being used to indicate whether or not Cat A's final size will be bigger or smaller than Cat B (whether to multiply or divide).