Slick Sam

Sam goes to store with some money. If you give me $50, I’ll spend 1/2 of all my money. He does the same in a 2^nd store and again in a 3^rd store and a 4^th store. When he leaves the 4^th store he has $75. How much money did he start with?

Game Players

Three girls play three rounds of a game. On each round there are two winners and one loser. The girl who loses on a round has to double the number of chips that each of the other girls has by giving up some of her own chips. Each girl loses one round. At the end of three rounds, each girl has 40 chips. How many chips did each girl have at the beginning of the game?

Colored tiles

Ramon took a collection of colored tiles from a box. Amelia took 13 tiles from his collection, and Keiko took half of those remaining. Ramon had 11 left. How many did he start with?

Sharing Blocks

A box of blocks was sitting on a table in a classroom. Mindy decided to play with the blocks and took one third of them to her desk. John thought this was a great idea and took one third of the blocks that remained in the box. A moment later Jim took one third of what then remained, leaving 16 blocks in the box.

a. How many blocks were in the box before any were removed?

b. How many did each of the children have to play with?

Two for Tennis

Scott and Jeremy took a basket of balls with them to tennis practice. Scott took out two and three them at Jeremy. Jeremy chased Scott and accidentally knocked over the basket, dumping out five-eights of the remaining balls. Scott threw three back in. As they were playing, a hard hit knocked the basket over, and one-fifth of the remaining balls rolled out. Scott put two balls back into the basket, but a couple of minutes later a smash hit knocked the basket over again. Half the remaining balls rolled out, and then there were seven left in the basket. How many tennis balls did Scott and Jeremy start with in the basket?