Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader

At work the other day someone got an email with a simple math problem. Nobody could solve it, nobody, but me that is. I thought it was pretty simple. I am no math genius, but it was my favorite subject after science in school. Am I weird that I find math fun? I actually wish I could do more math for fun. I know I forgot most of the math that I learned in school, which sucks. So, here is that problem that nobody could figure out:

There are 7 girls on a school bus. Each girl has 7 backpacks. In each backpack there are 7 big cats. Each big cat has 7 little cats.

How many legs are on the bus?

There is no trickery. It’s just a simple math problem. Is it really hard, or do I work with a bunch of dummies? Try it out and put your answers in the comments.

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  • Ok so... 7 girls each have 2 legs {we assume} so there's 14 legs. And each of them have 7 backpacks with 7 big cats each... So 49 backpacks with 7 cats is 343 big cats and they each have 4 legs {we assume} so there's 1372 legs, and each big cat has 7 small cats, so 343X7 is 2401 small cats with 4 legs each {we assume} 9604.... so that's a total of 10990 legs, right? Or did I miss something? Please don't say I'm a dummy too.... :)
  • air
    I agree with Salena: 10990, unless there is a bus driver, too, then 10992.

    And I'd be happy to send you some extra math problems. I've got books and books of them. What grade you you want to try??
  • Yep, you are both right. I must work with a bunch of dummies.
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