2nd Grade Math you're gonna hate

[Icarus]

OK all you math or financial experts - what say ye?

Shelly has a row of 9 dimes.
She took out every other dime and puts down a nickel.
Then she picks up every third dime (of the ones left) and puts down a quarter.
How much money does Shelly have?

I cannot take credit for this one. It's from a friend of mine whose kid was given this in 2nd grade math.

By the way, I will monitor this thread, but won't provide any initial feedback.

[MNOWAX]

[Vagrant]

Or it could be ...

She took out every other dime and puts down 'A' nickel
Then she picks up every third dime (of the ones left) and puts down 'A' quarter

So she could have either 3 or 4 dimes with 1 nickel and 1 quarter, either 60c or 70c.

[3iff]

I go with the DNDNQNDND pattern for however much that is in American money...85 cents says MNO...

Question is badly ambiguous though...

[Zag]

(Missed this one earlier -- not sure why.)

Note that this does not have the parts that are struck out.

Shelly has a row of 9 dimes.
She took out every other dime and puts down a nickel for each one.
Then she picks up every third dime (of the ones left) and puts down a quarter for each one.
How much money does Shelly have?

Therefore, I get

[Suspence]

This reminds me of the "As I was going to St. Ives" rhyme, where the ambiguity leads to tons of possible answers.
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I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Zag]

Or this one, which is easy in context:

A human space adventurer was the First Contact on a strange planet, where there were two intelligent races. The ones he dubbed "milli-centaurs" had a millipede-like lower half and a humanoid upper half, with 2 eyes, 2 arms, and 62 legs. The others he called 'Durgas' had 8 arms, 2 legs, and an eye cluster that amounted to 12 eyes.

When he joined a mixed gathering of the creatures, he asked his computer how many there were. Unfortunately, the computer was built in Puzzlania, so all it told him was that the gathering included 282 eyes, 202 arms, and 1282 legs.

How many aliens were at the gathering?

[Icarus]

[Zag]

Thanks. That's not original, by the way, but I don't recall the source. (I did have to make up the details for myself, but the core of it I read elsewhere.)

[Icarus]

I think everyone that was going to chime in here has.

The "point" I was trying to go after, as shown with several different answers above, was the question (albeit meant to be read by a 2nd grader) was posed in such a way that any answer could be correct.

I came up with 11 that based on the wording itself I could easily defend to be correct:

A) $.10
B) $.50
C) $.60
D) $.70
E) $.80
F) $.85
G) $1.20
H) $1.25
I) $1.30
J) $1.35
K) $1.40

For those that are curious - the "intended" answer was $0.85.

Think like a 2nd grader?

But as an adult, what happened to the rest of the money ($.50 vanished) as MNOWAX pointed out in his 2nd display, where did those 5 dimes end up?

[itisally]

This is why I hate helping my son with homework, and I teach for a living.
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I could agree with you, but then we would both be wrong.