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Can You Solve the Fruit Puzzle?

Put your brain to the test!

| 1 min read

Put your brain to the test!

An algebraic puzzle using fruit

A puzzle similar to this one has been circulating around the internet and stumping people everywhere. There are a few tricks here to see, but it is all simple algebra. Click here to jump to the answer.

The first trick to notice is that you don’t have to use the equations in order. If we start with the second line, we know that 3 apples are worth $15, so each apple is worth $5.

Then, if we look at the third line, it looks a little tricky because neither the watermelon nor the bananas are seen in other places where we have a total. However, in our unknown equation, the amount of both those fruits is simply doubled, so we can just double the total. If half a watermelon and 2 bananas are worth $12, then a whole watermelon and four bananas must be worth $24.

That leaves the pineapple as the only unknown. We can plug our value for an apple back into the first equation and see that the pineapple must be worth $13.

So, for the last equation we have $24+ 2 x $5 + $13 = $47. That’s some pretty expensive fruit!

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