Wacky word problems

The hilarious Jenners was inspired to create a game after seeing this math problem:

Each basket held 16 watermelons. Dan collected 1/2 of a basket. Kim collected 2/3 of a basket. Who collected more apples? Show how you know.

It is kind of wacky, right?

Her challenge was for us to come up with more impossible problems. And as maths was one of my weaker subjects at school, not dissimilar to my ankles, I thought I’d give it a go!

1. Too many cooks

If the anklebiters are inventing their own recipes at home and use 3 dl of strong white flour, and then Sir Pe comes in and adds another 2 dl of wholemeal flour, and then the dog runs off with 3/4 of this amount, how long will it take for Lady Fi to start burning the food?

2. The Road Trip problem

If you are going on a road trip in a small, overheated car with lots of overexcited kids and drive the first 100 km at 100 km per hour and the next 700 km at 50 km per hour due to constant toilet stops, who will start screaming ‘Are we there yet’ first?

3. Fruit Salad

If you start chopping up two melons, and Trevor slices three bananas while Maggie dices the pineapple, how long will it take for you to digest the fruit salad?

4. Boredom

If you have to sit through two double Latin lessons every week for five years, how long before you lose faith in humanity?

And, of course, no math challenge would be complete without these two classic problems circulating on the Internet:

5. Where is Wally?

6. Will someone please move that elephant out of the way!

And finally…