In order to win a free laptop computer, students had to guess the exact numbers of gumballs in a jar. The students guessed 45, 41, 55, 50 and 43, but none won. The guesses were off by 3, 7, 5, 7 and 2 (given in no particular order). From this information, can you determine the number of gumballs in the jar?
Answer
Forty-Eight gumballs. (48)
Since two guessers were off by seven and no guesses were repeated, these values had to refer to numbers at the opposite sides of the spread The two extremes are 41 and 55. If you add 7 to 41, and subtract 7 from 55, you arrive at the answer, 48.