Ratio Rescue: The Bad Beginning

In Lemony Snickets The Bad Beginning, the

Baudelaire orphans face many challenges when
their money-hungry relative Count Olaf
adopts them. Help Violet, Klaus, and Sunny
escape and keep their tremendous fortune safe
by completing the following tasks.

Count Olaf becomes very dependent upon the Baudelaire children, and
often leaves them notes with daily work to complete. One day, he leaves
a note asking them to make dinner for his theater troupe. Without leaving
any indication of what to make, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny decide to make
Puttanesca after looking for recipes in their neighbors library.

Pasta
1. When looking for cherry tomatoes in the grocery
Puttanesca!
store, there are two different options. The first
option is the cherry tomatoes at 99 cents per
6 cloves of garlic pound. The second option is a small cherry
2 Tbs. of olive oil tomato carton with about 20 for $1.99. What is
1 medium onion the better deal if each cherry tomato weighs
8 chopped anchovies about 1 ounce? Explain.
c. pitted olives
2 Tbs. capers
tsp. crushed red
pepper flakes
6 cherry tomatoes
diced
1 15-oz. can of tomato 2. If the recipe they found is only 4 servings, how
sauce can they alter the amounts of ingredients to serve
1/3 c. minced basil a total of 14? What will each ingredient
leaves measurement be? Show your thinking.

Serve over pasta with

Parmesan cheese!
 Mr. Poe told me, Count Olaf said, that you
appeared to be having some difficulty adjusting to
the life I have so graciously provided for you. Im very
sorry to hear thatTherefore, to make you feel a little
more at home here, I would like to have you
participate in my next play. Perhaps if you took part
in the work I do, you would be less likely to run off
complaining to Mr. Poe.

And what will I do? Violet asked.

What is Count You are going to play the young woman I marry.
Olafs plan?
Source: The Bad Beginning (Snicket 1999, pp. 73-76)

In order to figure out Count Olafs plan, the Baudelaire orphans begin
researching in Justice Strausss library. Recognizing their need for law books
in order to uncover his plan, it becomes evident that there are many within
her library.
3. Justice Strauss indicates later to the Baudelaires that for every two
fictional books, there are 3 law books. If there are a total of 150
fictional books, how many law books are there? Explain.

4. It is also made known that 1 out of 5 law books are about marriage
rights. How many books are about marriage rights? Show work.

5. The number you found above represents the total amount of books
that Klaus and Violet will have to go through to gain valuable
information about what makes a legal marriage. How would you
recommend they search through these books?

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 Where did Sunny go?
When Klaus discovers Olafs plan of
legally marrying Violet during the play to
take their fortune and tells Olaf of his
discovery, Olaf just smiles.

After going back to his room, he realizes

that Sunny is missing, only to be found
trapped in a birdcage dangling from a
30-foot tower. What will they do now?

Violet, being the inventor that she is, decided to create a grappling hook
using clothes and a clothes hanger.
6. Help Violet determine the length of her rope given that the sides of
the two triangles are proportional. Show your thinking.
Ac
tu
al
le
ng
th

30 ft.
of
ro

6.5 ft.
pe

5 ft.
=
?

Actual Tower

7. If the length of her rope is ________ ft. and each piece of clothing to
make the rope is the length of about 2 ft., how many pieces of clothing
will she need? If she has 19 pieces of clothing to use, will that be
enough? Why or why not?

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 When Count Olaf is finally revealed as the
mischievous mad-man that he is in front of the How did they
entire audience at his performance, Lemony escape so fast?
Snicket gives a fair warning:
At this point in the story, I feel obliged to interrupt
and give you one last warning. As I said at the
very beginning, the book you are holding in your
hands does not have a happy ending. It may
appear now that Count Olaf will go to jail and
that the three Baudelaire youngsters will live
happily ever after with Justice Strauss, but it is not
so.
Source: The Bad Beginning (Snicket 1999, pp. 156)

It is no surprise that Count Olaf and the rest of his theater troupe escape.
They manage to turn the lights off, in which panic takes place throughout
the theater, and him and his troupe are off.

8. If it took 15 seconds for Count Olaf and his troupe to run 50 yards to get
out of the theater, what speed were they running in miles per hour?
Show your solution method. Is this a reasonable rate?

9. Count Olaf occasionally works out so he is able to escape from

incidences like this. When he sprints, he is able to cover 4 yards in one
second. Is this speed more or less than the answer above? Why do you
think this is so?

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