Copyright © University of Cambridge. All rights reserved.

'The Pet Graph' printed from https://nrich.maths.org/

Show menu

Tina sent us her solution. She tackled the problem logically.

Only one child has a parrot at home, so the green bar must be parrots.

Fish+gerbils=dogs and if you try all the possibilities it must be the red bar for dogs, and the blue and yellow bars for fish and gerbils (but we don't know which way round yet).

There are two less cats than dogs, so the purple bar must be for cats (because we know how many dogs there are now).

So the orange bar must be for hamsters (because all the rest have been matched up, even though we don't know which way round blue and yellow are yet).

There are twice as many fish as hamsters, so the yellow bar must be for fish. So the blue bar must be for gerbils.

There are half the number of gerbils as there are cats- yes, this works!

During lockdown 2020 we received the following from Clemmie who goes to Thomas's London Day Schools.

 

Well done Clemmie, that solution is very well shown in your work.