In order to win a free visit to the dentist, students had to guess the exact number of gumballs in a fish bowl.The students guessed 45,41, 55, 50, and 43, but no one won.
The guesses were off by 3, 7, 5, 7, and 2 (in no given order). From this information, determine the number of gumballs in the bowl.
Answer: Forty-eight gumballs. Since two guesses were off by seven and no guesses were repeated, these values had to refer to numbers at the opposite extremes of the spread.The two extremes are 41 and 55. If you add 7 to one and take 7 away from the other, you arrive at the middle number of 48.
