EDUC 301 math practice

Question

Three girls play three rounds of a game. On each round, there are two winners and one loser. The girl who loses on a round has to double the number of chips that each of the other girls has by giving up some of her own chips. At the end of three rounds, each girl has 72 chips. Answer the following questions to determine how many chips each girl had at the beginning of the game?

Answer 1

There are many solutions to this problem depending on who wins. And you don't ask the questions but see if this helps. It's a scenario where the same girl loses each time:

Assuming no chips were added or taken away in each round, and there were 72•3 or 216 total chips in round 3, then there must be 216 total chips in each round. In order for the two winning girls to end up with 72, they must have had 36 entering round 3. In order for them to have 36 entering round 3, they must have had 18 entering round 2. In order for them to have 18 entering round 2, they must have started with 9.

You can do the same thing with other scenarios where a different girl loses each time.