Muffins

Milly Miffin made one muffin more than Molly’s mother made, and Milly Miffin’s mother made one muffin more than Molly made; and Molly’s mother and Milly and Milly’s mother and Molly made 50 muffins (total), but Molly’s mother and Milly made 4 muffins more than Milly’s mother and Molly made. So murmur how many muffins Milly made.

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Monkey and Rope

A piece of rope is hanging over a pulley. A weight is at one end of the rope and a monkey is hanging at the other end, scratching himself. The monkey and the weight are exactly level with each other. The monkey’s age and the age of his mother total seven years. The monkey weighs as many pounds as his mother is years old. Four feet of rope weighs one pound.

The monkey’s mother is one third again as old as the monkey would be if the monkey’s mother were half as old as the monkey will be when the monkey is three times as old as the monkey’s mother was when the monkey’s mother was three times as old as the monkey was then.

The weight of the weight and the rope together come to twice the difference between the sum of the weight of the weight plus the weight of the monkey and the weight of the weight.

How long is the rope?

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Birthday Present (Dimes, Quarters)

Hartley and Bertha are pooling their money to buy their mother a birthday present. (Her birthday, by coincidence, turned out to be the day she was elected to the school board.) The two have $20.25 between them. Hartley has all of his money in dimes and Bertha’s is in quarters. Hartley has twice as many dimes as Bertha has quarters. How much money is Hartley contributing?

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Wealth Redistribution

The kingdom of Syldavia has five economic classes. Feeling one day that there is too great a disparity among the wealth of the classes, the King asks his Finance Minister to devise a plan to redistribute the wealth of the classes. The FM proposes that the wealth of the top two classes be averaged, then the wealth of classes 2 and 3 be averaged, then the wealth of classes 3 and 4 be averaged, and finally that the wealth of classes 4 and 5 be averaged—a four-step process. The King likes the sound of the plan, but suggests that the progression should be from the lowest classes upwards. (In either case, the result will be a four-class system.) Which of the two plans should the lowest class prefer? Why?

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