the farmer plucks these numbers of roses, the next day 37 or 36 or 9 or 18

Question

3. A farmer has a rose garden. Every day he either plucks 7 or 6 or 24 or 23 roses. The rose plants are intelligent and when the farmer plucks these numbers of roses, the next day 37 or 36 or 9 or 18 new roses bloom in the garden respectively. On Monday, he counts 189 roses in the garden. He plucks the roses as per his plan on consecutive days and the new roses bloom as per intelligence of the plants mentioned above. After some days which of the following can be the number of roses in the garden?
a) 4

Answer 1

First, read and re-read the problem until you understand it and can put it into your own words.  How’s this:

 

Given exactly one of these equations, where x is a positive integer, which value is possible for y?

   Equations:

         [1]  y = 189 + 30x            (note:  37-7 = 30)

         [2]  y = 189 + 30x            (note: 36-6=30)

         [3]  y = 189 – 15x            (note:  9-24=-15)

         [4]  y = 189 – 5x              (note: 18-23=-5)

 

a)   4

    Using equation [4] with x=37, y=4.

 

This is the “key” (that is, correct answer); are there distractors (that is, answer choices)?

 

Note that equation [3] results in numbers less than 189 also, so check it.  Equations [1} and [2] both produce y values greater than 189.