Question

Velma has exactly one week to learn all 71 Japanese hiragana characters. If she can learn at-most a dozen of them on any one day and will have time to learn only 4 of them on Friday, what is the least number of hiragana characters that Velma has to learn on Saturday?

A) 19

B) 11

C) 7

D) 12

Answer 1

Hint:

For Velma to learn the least number of characters on Saturday, she needs to learn the maximum number on the rest of the days. Make a table of days and fill with characters learned each day to avoid any confusion.

Sun = 12

Mon = 12

Tue = 12

Wed = 12

Thu = 12

Fri = 4

Sat = ?

Total = 71

Now, try to solve yourself before looking at the complete solution.

Complete step-by-step solution:

Total number of characters to be learned = 71

Let the number of characters leaned by Velma on Saturday be x.

Number of characters learned on Friday = 4

Number of characters learned on any other day = 12 (a dozen)

Total number of such days where Velma learns 12 characters = 5

The sum of characters learned on each day should be equal to 71

Which mean that 12+12+12+12+12+4+x = 71

=> 64+x=71

=> x = 71-64 = 7.

Hence, Velma needs to learn at least 7 Japanese hiragana characters on Saturday. Option (C)

NOTE:

1) 1 Dozen = 12 items

2) The most common mistake that one can make here is to forget Sunday. In that case you come up with the answer 19.