Math Word Problems
A study in satire, escalation, and the slippery slope of wealth
Math Word Problems Worksheet
Name: ___________________________ Date: ___________________
1. Rob has 3 packs of stickers. Each pack contains 12 stickers. He gives 10 stickers to his friend Greg. How many stickers does Rob have left?
2. Greg sells the 10 stickers for two dollars each. How much money has Greg made off of Rob’s gift?
3. When Rob confronts Greg, Greg promises to sell Rob’s remaining stickers for 4 dollars each and split the profit. Rob gives Greg his stickers. How much money do they stand to make?
4. Greg lies to Rob about how many stickers he actually sold. He gives Rob 30% of the total profit and calls it 50%. How long until Rob realizes he’s been duped?
5. Greg’s father is a CEO of a pharma company. The night before a new drug is approved, Greg invests his extra 20% of sticker sales in company stock. How quickly will the SEC choose to not prosecute Greg or his father for insider trading? (Hint: his father went to Yale with the Inspector General of the SEC).
6. Greg now has $3,000. He spends this on a plane ticket to Ibiza. How quickly can Greg make friends with the son of a Russian Oligarch?
7. After Greg and Nikolai wake up in pools of their own vomit, they decide they are best friends. The boys stay in Europe for an extended vacation, and the bill is footed by Nikolai’s father. How many times per day will Greg’s mother refer to him as a “free spirit”?
8. After six months of club-hopping around Europe, Greg returns home. He sees Rob, who tells him his father lost his factory job after the company moved operations to China. What is the probability, to the nearest hundredth of a percent, that Greg will do something to help Rob?
9. Years later, after Greg graduates with a 1.7 GPA from Yale and is given a job by his father, he is written up in Businessweek as a “brilliantly-minded entrepreneur.” How many times per paragraph will Greg equate his success to “hard work”?
10. If Greg travels on a train traveling 100km/hr, and his mistress lives 30 miles away, how quickly will his wife divorce him and take half of their estate?