How can she test to see which out of the three apples are rotten using a scale?

Question

Debbie works at an apple orchard. She knows every so often there is a bad or rotten apple in the baskets of apples she picks. She knows that bad apples weigh less than the good ones. There are a lot of apples in her baskets so she wants to spend as little time as possible for checking apples. She has three apples and one is bad. How can she weigh apples just one time and still find out which one is bad?

Answer 1

Hi Katie!

 

I assume you mean she is using a balance type scale where she would put, say, one apple on one side and another on the other side.  

 

She should weigh two of the apples against each other. If one is lighter than the other, then the lighter one is the bad apple.  If they weigh the same, then they are both good and the third one (not being weighed) is the bad one.  

 

Hope that helps!

 

Jeff