“A farm contains horses and chickens. There are 99 heads and 252 legs. How many chickens are there?”

I had to solve this in class. Here is my answer:

a. Describe your FIRST method trying to solve the problem ( strategy, data arrangement etc )

My first method was to find out what the total number of horses would be if they were all horses and then the same thing with the chickens.

b. Why is your method and answer correct? Show your proof.

Basically, It’s dividing the total amount of legs by the number of legs in a chicken(2). I then find the difference between that number and the total number of heads. The leftover number is the amount of chickens.

c. What would have happened if the problem would have contained larger numbers ? It would have still worked.

d. How else might you have solved the problem?

Instead of starting by dividing the number of legs by 2 I could have just subtracted 99 from it right away and divided the answer of that by 2.

e. What makes the other strategy better than the first one? Present your best method of solving
the problem.

Adon Ishak’s strategy makes it so it is a lot easier to understand and is a lot easier and simpler to solve.