Three guys decided to share the cost of a motel room. It was thirty dollars. Each man gave a ten to the hotel managaer and went up to their shared room. However, the manager realized he had overcharged them by five dollars. So he gave a five to the bellboy to return to them. The bellboy couldn't figure out how to split five dollars between three men. So he took two dollars, put them in his pocket and then gave each man one dollar back. This means that each man paid nine dollars for the room. Nine dollars times the three (three men) is twenty-seven. Now add the two dollars the bellboy took, and that is only twenty-nine. What happened to the other dollar?
First one to figure out the logical answer/ mathematical error wins best question.
2006-06-01T13:29:28Z
Edit... I already have an answer figured out for myself... and this isnt for school! i just wanted to know what you guys thought. so dont tell me you want me to figure it out for myself b/c i already have. but as you see there are many ways of logically explaining it.
by not giving the full answer, your only hurting your answer for best logical reasoning
Anonymous2006-06-01T13:26:16Z
Favorite Answer
There is no error,
this type of dislogical reasoning is just plain stupid,
Three man gave 10 bucks each, 30 total bell boy took 5 back 25 total just for future reference 25 / 3 = 8 and 1/3
So each man did not pay 9 bucks, each man payed $8.33
so if you add 1 dolar that they got back ,, 8.33 + 1 = 9.33
and you add all three of theirs 9.33 + 9.33 + 9.33 = 27.99 or 28
and plus 2 bucks form the bell boy .,.,.. 28+2 = 30
Alright this problem wasnt set up right. Each guy did not pay 9 dollars each. $30 - $2 = $28. So since the bellboy stole $2 then lets just say they came in there with $28. $3 was returned so the room was actually $25. $25 divided by 3 = $8.333333333333333333. So the 3 guys paid that much a peice for the room.
The problem is that the question is always cleverly phrased to conceal what is really going on. Since I don't want to just give you the answer, I'll tell you how I think about it and then you can see if you understand it.
First let's locate all that money. There are two ways to think about how much money is there, and the trick in this question is that it combines the two ways:
1. How much money did the men originally pay? 2. How much money did they end up paying?
For (a), we need to account for $30. The owner keeps $25, the bellboy gets $2, and the men get $3 back. That adds up fine.
Now let's look at (b). How much money did the men end up paying? $27, of which $25 went to the owner and $2 to the bellboy. That adds up too.
The problem with the question is that the $2 the bellboy gets is already contained in the $27 that the men end up paying, so we shouldn't expect adding that $2 to anything to be meaningful.
You don't add the $2 to the amount each man paid, you subtract it. 3 x 9 = $27 - $2 = $25, which is the actual cost of the motel room. The men paid paid the cost of the motel ($25) plus the $2 tip for the bellboy. 25+2= 27. The original $30 that was paid shouldn't be part of the equation.