PAMANTASAN NG LUNGSOD NG MAYNILA

University of the City of Manila

Engineering Mathematical Society

Practice Word Problems

1. Once a week Mrs. Baker makes sugar cookies. The first week she makes the
recipe, she uses the full 2 cups of sugar called for. Each week after that, she
reduces the amount of sugar by one third.

a) How much sugar does she use for the cookies on the fifth week?

b) How much sugar does she use for cookies over half a year?

c) If Mrs. Baker became immortal and baked cookies every week for all eternity,
how much sugar would she use?

2. Mr. Vold is a sadistic teacher who likes writing lots of exam questions. He usually
starts out the semester with only 10 questions on the first exam, but for each
subsequent exam he writes one and a half as many questions as were on the
previous exam! Since there's no such thing as half a question and Mr. Vold likes
writing questions, round your answers up to the next integer.

a) How many questions are on the second exam of the semester?

b) How many questions are on the third exam of the semester?

c) How many questions are on the fifth exam of the semester?

d) If Mr. Vold wrote 20 exams in a semester, how many total exam questions
would they have all together?

3. Mo reads a lot of books. When he was five years old he read 4 books. Each year
he reads three more than twice the number of books he read the previous year.

a) How many books does Mo read when he's six years old?

b) How many books does Mo read when he's eight years old?

c) Give a formula for the number of books Mo reads when he's 5 + i years old.
It's ok if there's a summation sign in your formula.

Hint: When finding the answers to (a) and (b), don't simplify too much

d) Use your formula from (c) to calculate how many books Mo reads when he's
fifteen years old.

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Check your answer by computing the same number without using the formula.

4. On January 1st Komi puts $100 into his bank account. On the first of each month
after that he deposits an additional $10.

a) How much money is in Komi's account at the end of February?

b) How much money is in Komi's account at the end of March?

c) How much money is in Komi's account after n months?

5. Lizette decides that starting in January she will deposit $50 into her bank account
at the start of each month. Her account earns 0.25% interest per month. Interest is
calculated at the end of each month. Truncate answers to two decimal places.

a) In the middle of February, how much money is in Lizette's account?

b) In the middle of March, how much money is in Lizette's account?

c) In the middle of the nth month (where January is the 1st month, February is
the 2nd month, etc.), how much money is in Lizette's account? Give your
answer in closed form.

d) In the middle of December, how much money is in Lizette's account?

6. On January 1st Kendra puts $100 into her bank account. On the first of each
month after that she deposits an additional $100. Unfortunately, during the middle
of the month she always has to withdraw 75% of her money to pay bills.

a) How much money is in Kendra's account at the end of March?

b) How much money is in Kendra's account at the end of n months? Write your
answer in closed form.

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