Thread: Money Math-Trick Question

Kane has $50.00. He goes to the supermarket and buys football boots and then he buys a soccer ball, which is half the price of the football boots.He then spends half of what she has left on a belt, leaving him with $15.00.

How much did the soccer ball cost?

How much did the football boots cost?

I started it like this:

Let x= price of football boots

Let 1/2(x) = price of soccer ball

the combined cost of soccer ball and football boots = x + 1/2(x)

Amount spent on the football boots and soccer ball :

$50-(

I am stuck

The text gives a clue that the price of the belt = $15
(How did they arrive at the conclusion that the price of the belt equals $15?)

Anyone has any ideas as to how I can move on?

Thanks

let y be the amount of money after he buys both football and soccer boots.then the price of the belt is 1/y.after buying the belt he has $15.so the equation is:
y-y/2=$15

can you solve it from here?

Originally Posted by KayPee

Kane has $50.00. He goes to the supermarket and buys football boots and then he buys a soccer ball, which is half the price of the football boots.He then spends half of what she has left on a belt, leaving him with $15.00.

How much did the soccer ball cost?

How much did the football boots cost?

I started it like this:

Let x= price of football boots

Let 1/2(x) = price of soccer ball

the combined cost of soccer ball and football boots = x + 1/2(x)

Amount spent on the football boots and soccer ball :

$50-(

I am stuck

The text gives a clue that the price of the belt = $15
(How did they arrive at the conclusion that the price of the belt equals $15?)

Anyone has any ideas as to how I can move on?

Thanks

Let x be the price of the boots

After buying the football and the football boots he is left with:

He then spends half of this on the belt and is left with $15:

Of course we have an expression for y in x so sub that in:



And after simplification:



Solve for x, which is the price of the boots

Originally Posted by KayPee

Kane has $50.00. He goes to the supermarket and buys football boots and then he buys a soccer ball, which is half the price of the football boots.He then spends half of what she has left on a belt, leaving him with $15.00.

Well, you said this was a trick question! Who is "she" and how much money does she have?

How much did the soccer ball cost?

How much did the football boots cost?

I started it like this:

Let x= price of football boots

Let 1/2(x) = price of soccer ball

the combined cost of soccer ball and football boots = x + 1/2(x)

Amount spent on the football boots and soccer ball :

$50-(

I am stuck

The text gives a clue that the price of the belt = $15
(How did they arrive at the conclusion that the price of the belt equals $15?)

Anyone has any ideas as to how I can move on?

Thanks

You were told that he spent "half of what [s]he has left on a belt" and then had $15 left. If you spend "half", you have "half" left.

That means that before buying the belt, he had $30. That means that the boots and ball cost 50- 30= $20. Taking x to be the cost of the boots, the ball cost x/2 so x+ x/2= 3x/2= 20.