Basic Word Problems

1. A man goes to a casino with $125. He loses $30 on blackjack, then loses another $40 on roulette. How much money does he have left?

2. A baker uses 6 eggs to bake a cake. How many cakes will he be able to bake with 145 eggs?

3. A woman must drive 298 miles to reach her destination. If she travels 42 miles during the first hour, how many miles will she have yet to travel?

4. Jamie had $6.50 in his wallet when he left home. He spent $4.25 on drinks and $2.00 on a magazine. Later, his friend repaid him $2.50 that he had borrowed the previous day. How much money does Jamie have in his wallet?

$12.25
$14.25
$3.25
$2.75
$1.75

5. Tom works 25 hours a week and earns $7.75 per hour. He received a raise that increases his weekly pay to $206.25. What is the increase in Tom’s weekly pay?

$12.50
$13.25
$13.75
$14.50

6. How many seconds are there in 36 hours?

2,160
51,840
129,600
132,200

7. You purchase a car making a down payment of $3,000 and 6 monthly payments of $225. How much have you paid so far for the car?

$3,225
$4,350
$5,375
$6,550

8. A pizza dough recipe calls for 2 cups of flour and 1 ¹/₂ teaspoons of salt. How much salt would you need if you wanted to triple the recipe?

1 tablespoon
3 teaspoons
4 ¹/₂ teaspoons
6 teaspoons

9. If a local grocery store last year had a total income of $7,056,238 and expenses of $3,998,100, how much profit did it make (profit is income minus expenses)?

$3,058,138
$3,158,138
$2,738,188
$4,158,188

10. Karen goes to the grocery store with $40. She buys a gallon of milk for $3.20, a loaf of bread for $1.85, and a bunch of bananas for $3.05. How much money does she have left?

$30.95
$31.90
$32.10
$34.95

Answers and Explanations

1. C: Calculate how much the man lost: $40 + $30 = $70. Then, subtract that amount from the amount he had originally: $125 – $70 = $55

2. B: To find out how many cakes the baker will be able to make, divide the total number of eggs (145) by the number needed to make a single cake (6): 145 / 6 = 24 (with 1 extra egg left over)

3. B: To calculate how many miles the woman still has to travel, subtract the distance she has traveled (42 miles) from the distance of the entire trip (298 miles):
298 miles – 42 miles = 256 miles

4. D: Jamie had $2.75 after all the transactions described. To solve this problem, first subtract $4.25 and $2.00 from the initial sum of $6.50, leaving $0.25. Then add $2.50, arriving at the final answer of $2.75
$6.50 – $4.25 – $2.00 = $0.25
$0.25 + $2.50 + $2.75

5. A: First, calculate Tom’s current weekly pay. Multiply the number of hours worked by his hourly wage: 25 x $7.75 = $193.75. The increase in pay is the new total wage minus the previous total wage: $206.25 – $193.75 = $12.50, Choice A

6. C: Convert the units from hours to seconds: 36 hours x 60 minutes/hour x 60 seconds/minute = 129,600, Choice C.

7. B: $3,000 + $225(6) = $4,350

8. C: 1 ¹/₂ x 3 = 4 ¹/₂

9. A: The income ($7,056,238) minus expenses ($3,998,100) = $3,058,138.

10. B: The answer is $31.90. To solve this problem, you must know how to solve word problems involving decimal subtraction. In this scenario, Karen starts out with a certain amount of money and spends some of it on groceries. To calculate how much money she has left, simply subtract the money spent from the original figure: $40 – $1.85 – $3.20 – $3.05. You can either subtract them one by one or add them up and subtract the sum from 40: $40 – ($1.85 + $3.20 + $3.05). Either way will generate the right answer.