Question

What is the weight of an apple?

(a) 200g
(b) 150g
(c) 250g
(d) 300g

Answer 1

Hint: Take the weight of an apple as ‘x’. Since the given figure shows a balance, we know that both sides are balanced i.e. LHS = RHS. Find the total weight on LHS and RHS from the figure and equate them to get a value of x.

Complete step by step solution:
From the figure, we can see that the LHS and the RHS of the weights are balanced. To state it more clearly, we can say that they are parallel to the ground.

Let us consider the LHS as the side with the apple and weight of 100g and RHS with the side as weight of 250g. Now we need to find the weight of the apple. Let us take it as ‘x’.
Total weight on LHS of the balance = 100 + x.
Total weight on RHS of the balance = 50 + 100 + 100 = 250g.
As the balance is equal, LHS = RHS.
Let us equate the values and solve for x.
100 + x = 250
\[\Rightarrow \] x = 250 – 100 = 150g.
Hence we got the weight of an apple as 150g.
Hence option (b) is the correct answer.

Note: We can also approach the question in an alternate way. From the figure the weight is balanced. If you remove 100g block from both LHS and RHS the balance doesn’t alter. Hence we can draw the figure after removing 100g as,

Thus from the figure it’s clear that the weight of the apple is 150g in order to get the balance.