Question

A boy decided to distribute blankets to the poor people instead of having a party with his friend on his thirteenth birthday. He distributed half the blankets to an old age home, three fourth of the remaining to an orphanage and rest 20 were distributed among the road side beggars. Find the number of the blankets he had. What values are being promoted?

Answer 1

Hint: Let the total number of blankets be x. If we try to interpret the question, we will find that half of x is the number of blankets distributed in the old age home, three fourth of the other half, i.e., three eighth of x is the number of blankets given in the orphanage, and the left out one eighth of x is equal to 20 which was given to road side beggars. Now represent all this mathematically and find the value of x.

Complete step-by-step answer:
Let us start the solution to the above question by letting the total number of blankets be x.
Now as it is given that half of the blankets were distributed in the old age home. So, the number of blankets distributed in an old age home is $\dfrac{1}{2}x$ .
Also, it is given that three forth of the remaining half was distributed in the orphanage. So, the number of blankets distributed in orphanage is given by $\dfrac{1}{2}\times x\times \dfrac{3}{4}=\dfrac{3}{8}x$ .
The remaining 20 were given to road side beggars. The remaining can be calculated by subtracting the above distributed blankets from total, i.e., $x-\dfrac{1}{2}\times x-\dfrac{3}{8}x=\dfrac{1}{8}x$ . If we equate this with 20, we get
$\dfrac{1}{8}\times x=20$
$\Rightarrow x=160$
Therefore, the total number of blankets is 160 blankets.
The values represented by the distributor is the social responsibilities which he fulfilled. Also, he represented the kindness and mercy which the very important traits a human must possess. He also showed that the real happiness lies in sharing it with others who really need it and would appreciate your efforts.

Note: Don’t get confused and interpret the statement that three forth of the remaining to an orphanage as $\dfrac{3}{4}x$ , which is completely wrong as it is given that there fourth of the remaining and it is not mentioned three fourth of the total.