Maya was 6th in line. Yosief was 6th from the end of line and there were 3 children between Maya and Yosief. How many children were there in the line?

1 Answer
Alan N.
Mar 10, 2018

There are either 7 or 15 children in the line.
It depends whether Yosief is ahead of or behind Maya in the line.

Explanation:

Consider the line of children. We are trying to find the number of children in the line.

We are told that Maya is #6^(th)# and there are 3 children between her and Yosief. We are also told Yosief is #6^(th)# from the end.

Here it is critical to notice that we are not told whether Maya is ahead of or behind Yosief in the line. This will then lead to two possible solutions to this problem.

(i) Assume Yosief is ahead of Maya in the line.

Since Maya is #6^(th)# in line #-> #Yoseif is #2^(nd) #

Since Yosief is #6^(th)# from the end, the line must be 7 long.

(ii) Assume Yosief is behind Maya in the line.

Since Maya is #6^(th)# in line #-> #Yoseif is #10^(th) #

Since Yosief is #6^(th)# from the end, the line must be 15 long.

Nice question! :-)

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