Anthony Borrelli

June 10, 2015

Math
901
Scholars Challenge #3 Choice A
Scholars Challenge Choice A, is basically exchanging truffles into chocolate bloc
ks or exchanging chocolate blocks into truffles. I had to answer 3 different que
stions to get the answer. The first question was If you wanted to exchange 10 blo
cks of chocolate, how many truffles would you get back in return?. The second que
stion was If you had 51 truffles and wanted to exchange them for blocks, how many
blocks could you get back in return for truffles?. And the final question was How
many different combinations of blocks and truffles could you buy that would hav
e a weight equivalent to 60 truffles?.
At first I had many ideas of what the answer could be for all of the three differ
ent problems. For the first question I had a prediction that you would get aroun
d 35 truffles in return for 10 blocks of chocolate . For the second question I h
ad an original estimate of around 10 chocolate blocks in return for 51 truffles
but then later switched that prediction to around 5. And for the bonus question
I guessed that there would only be one way to match the weight and have it equiv
alent to 60 truffles. I chose these 3 estimates to roughly give me an idea to wh
at the answer could possibly be, so that I could have a place to start out at.
For the first problem I began to solve the problem but formating an equ
ation but later realized that it would be best for me to use different methods o
f solving the problem. The way I decided to solve the problem in was in a drawin
g type method. I made a small graph and had decided to represent the exchange on
a chart in the form of jumps and steps. Each jump would represent 1 chocolate blo
ck and each step would represent 1 truffle. Using this format made it very easy
to keep track of what was being exchanged for what other item. In the end I had
ended up with the answer that for 10 chocolate blocks there would be 40 truffles
given back in return. My original prediction for this problem of 35 truffles fo
r 10 blocks was very accurate to the real answer of 40 truffles.
For the second problem I used the same chart format that i used for qu
estion #1 and it worked. This problem took the most time to convert because I ha
d miscalculated with the number if truffles being exchanged. After I had the tim
e to realize this and sort it out, I had an answer of 12 chocolate blocks being
given in exchange for in return for 51 truffles. For this problem my original pr
ediction was closer to the real answer when compared to my revision to my predic
tions.
For the third problem my challenge was to figure out how many different combin
ations of blocks and truffles could you buy that would have a weight equivalent
to 60 truffles. My original prediction was that there was only one combination t
hat would give you an exact amount of 60 truffles. To solve this problem I made
a custom guess and check chart. On one side of the chart was the number of truffle
s and on the other was the amount of blocks given with the amount of truffles. A
s the amount of chocolate blocks went up, the amount of truffles went down at th
e same time. So for 60 truffles there was 0 chocolate blocks and every time one
chocolate block was earned 4 truffles were given in exchange for that 1 block. So
at the end I found out that the equivalent weight of 60 truffles is 14 chocolat
e blocks, and my original prediction that there was only one possible way to rea
ch the equivalent weight of 60 truffles was correct.
In conclusion all three of the Scholars Challenges were somewhat diffic
ult. And of my original predictions for all three problems were decently close to
the actual answer. This Scholars Challenge is made to build up to the class of e
quations and to show to exchange and convert 2 sets of numbers against each othe
r to reach different totals. This was an essay for math class Scholars Challenge
#3 Choice A.