Question

Radha takes some flowers in a basket and visits three temples one by one. At each temple, she offers one-half of the flowers from the basket. If she is left with 3 flowers at the end, find the number of flowers she had in the beginning.

Answer 1

Let ‘x’ be the total no. of flowers Radha at first.

No. of flowers remained with her after visit to the first temple = `x/2`

No. of flowers remained with her after visit to the second first temple = `x/4`

No. of flowers remained with her after visit to the third first temple = `x/8`

Flowers remaining at last = 3

According to the question,

`x - (x/2 + x/4 + x/8) = 3`

8x – 7x = 24

x = 24

So, total number of flowers at the beginning = 24