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This was a tricky problem. Well done to those
of you who had a go. We had some very clearly explained answers.
The key was to work out the size of the booklet first.
Rachel, Ol, Jack and Alex from
Moretonhampstead Primary said:
First we worked out how many squares the booklet is. The
number has to be a square number and has to be even and
$\frac{1}{4}$ of that number has to be even again. The only number
possible for that is $1$6 (four squared).
Then we took $16$ (that was how big the booklet was) from a
$100$ which is $84$ (there are $84$ squares to play the game with).
With $84$ we can answer the first question - how many discs are
there altogether? ($84$).
After that we worked out how many discs there would be for the
colours. We worked out there would be $42$ discs ($\frac{1}{2}$ of
$84$), $21$ black discs ($\frac{1}{4}$ of $84$) and $7$ blue
($\frac{1}{12}$ of $84$).
We put that on the grid as it says on the sheet. Next we used
the last full column for blue and green. We know that there are $7$
blues (because of what we worked out earlier) which means there are
$3$ green discs ($7 +3 =10$ (which is how many in a column)).
There were five squares left. It says that there is $1$ white
square then the leftovers are yellow so we had $4$ yellows and $1$
white disc.
Now we hade completed the grid we could answer question $2$
and $3$. For question $2$ we counted up all the orange squares
($6$) and the fraction is $\frac{6}{84}$ but we had to simplify it
to $\frac{1}{14}$ (the answer).
Lastly we did question $3$. The fraction of green is
$\frac{3}{84}$ and simplified for the actual answer is
$\frac{1}{28}$.
The fraction of yellow is $\frac{4}{84}$ and simplified for
the answer is $\frac{1}{21}$.
There is only one white square so the answer is
$\frac{1}{84}$, for white.
Hamish, Rory, Sarah, Jesse and Samuel from
Rutherglen Primary also reasoned very clearly and they sent us a
picture of the full box which they modelled using cubes:
Sophie and Claire from The Downes School
wrote:
$1\times 1$ didn't work because it said that
two shortened rows have red discs.
$2\times 2$ didn't work because you need two
shortened rows of red and one of orange.
$3\times 3$ didn't work because the total number of discs would be
odd and you couldn't halve it. This means all odd numbers didn't
work.
$4\times 4$ did work because you had the right amount of shortened
rows.
$6 \times 6$ didn't work because you can't divide $64$ by
$12$.
$8 \times 8$ didn't work because you need six
whole rows.
Emma, Abi, Matthew B and Yuji from Moorfield
Junior School; Keshinie and Sharon at Kilvington GGS Victoria,
Australia; Gideon from Newberries Primary School and Hannah,
Georgia, Patrick; Hana from Bali International School and Matthew
from Brighton College Prep School realised that the number left
after taking away the booklet must be a multiple of $12$. Keshinie
and Sharon describe how they continued from there:
So that made it $84$.
Half of the disks are red so that made the amount of red
$42$.
Then it said that a quarter is black so that made it $21$.
Then it said that one twelfth is blue so that made it $7$.
Then it said that one complete row was filled with all of blue and
green and the remainder of $10$ if you take away $7$ made it $3$
green.
Then it said that one of the shortened rows is exactly filled with
all the orange disks so that makes it $6$.
Then it said that there was only one white disk.
Then we added all the numbers together making $80$ disks so there
was a remainder of $4$ which had to be yellow.
We divided the $84$ disks by the $6$ orange ones that made it
$14$. So the fraction of orange had to be $1$ out of $14$
($\frac{1}{14}$).
We divided the $84$ disks by the $3$ green disks making the answer
$28$. So the fraction of green had to be $\frac{1}{28}$.
We already knew that the fraction of white disk was
$\frac{1}{84}$.
We divided the $84$ disks by the $4$ yellow ones making it $21$ so
the fraction of yellow had to be $\frac{1}{21}$.
James from the Charter School explained very
well how he went about the problem:
Each of the sides is $10$ units and I called each of the sides
of the booklet $x$. this means that the equation for finding the
number of discs was $N=100-x^2$. ($N$ being the number of remaining
discs).
The amount of Blue discs was $\frac{N}{12}$ meaning that $N$
was a multiple of $12$. So I then collected all of the multiples of
$12$: $12$, $24$, $36$, $48$, $60$, $72$, $84$, $96$. I then
eliminated those that did not fit the earlier equation because
there was not a square number that fitted. This left: $36$, $84$,
$96$.
I eliminated $96$ because $x$ had to be more that three for
there was one complete row of orange discs and two of red
discs.
This left: $36$, $84$. From this I deduced that $x$ had to be
$4$ or $8$. This means that the amount of red disks had to end in a
$2$ or a $4$, because there are two incomplete rows of red these
either have to be a length of $6$ or $2$. Since the amount of red
discs is half of $N$ I halved both my possible $N$'s which came up
with $18$ and $42$. This means that the amount of reds was $42$ and
$N$ was $84$.
This means that $x$ is $4$ and that the amount of orange discs
was $6$ meaning the fraction is $\frac{1}{14}$.
The amount of blue was $\frac{N}{12}$ which was $7$.
This means that the amount of green discs was $3$ because
blues + greens = $10$. That means the fraction was
$\frac{1}{28}$.
The amount of white was $1$ meaning the fraction was
$\frac{1}{84}$.
Finally the rest were yellow.
Red was $42$. Blacks was $\frac{N}{4}$ which was $21$. Blue
was $7$. Orange was $6$. Green was $3$. White was $1$.
If you take all those away from $84$ you end up with $4$. That
is the amount of yellows. This means the fraction is
$\frac{1}{21}$.
Well done too to Harriet and Harah from
Greenacre School for Girls, Ruairidh from St Mary's High School,
Anne-Marie, Emma, Katherine, Laura from Gorseland Primary and
Eulalie and Holly who go to Lympstone Primary School.