Friday, February 29, 2008

Advantage of Abstraction

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
A. $1.10
B. $0.10
C. $0.05
D. $1.00
E. $0.15

Whaddya think? If you said (B) please think again.

4 comments:

Paddy said...

Cute linguistic puzzle:

first : bat + ball = 1.1
second : bat = ball + 1

Then we have

bat + ball = 1.1
bat -ball - 1
-------------
Subtracting first from second we get

2*ball = 0.1

so ball is 0.05 and hence (C)

Bharathy said...

Arrrrrrgh I dont get it!!!!!

Bharathy said...

x plus y is 1.10
and x-y is 1
so cancel out y

2x = 2.10
x = 1.05
so y = 1.10-1.05
= .05

(Thank you sis)

Paddy said...

Thats yanother way but regardless, the "Aha!" moment is what counts here