ACT Math : Operations

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for ACT Math

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Example Questions

Example Question #1744 : Act Math

Steven is bowling in a tournament and has the highest average after five games, with scores of , , and . In order to maintain his average, what must be Steven's score on his sixth game?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

To answer this question, we must calculate the average of Steven's five games. After this, to maintain his average, he needs to score the same in his sixth game as his average.

To calculate the average of a set of numbers, you add all the values together (or get the sum) and divide by the total number of values. So, for this data:

We can then solve this fraction to get our average:

Steven's average over the first five games is a score of . In order to maintain his average, he must match his average in game six. So, our answer is a score of  in game six.

Example Question #1745 : Act Math

Stella’s Soda Shop has a 24 oz bag of ice that they purchased for $22.50. In each drink they sell, they use 2 oz of ice. If the soda shop sold 4 drinks, what is the value of the ice left in the bag?

Possible Answers:

$7.52

$14.98

$16.86

$18.74

$3.76

Correct answer:

$14.98

Explanation:

If the cost of the bag is $22.50 and the bag holds 24 oz, each ounce is worth 94 cents. If Stella sold 4 drinks with 2 oz of ice each, she has used 8 oz of ice. 8 oz of ice at 94 cents an ounce is valued at $7.52. If you subtract that from the total value of the bag of ice, that leaves $14.98 worth of ice.

If you answered $18.74, you only valued the ice in each drink at one ounce.

If you answered $7.52, you found the value of ice in the drinks but not the value of the remainder of the bag.

If you answerd $3.76, you found the value of ice in the drinks if each drink only contained 1 ounce of ice. 

If you answered $16.86, you just forgot to subtract the cost of ice for all four drinks but rather only subtracted the cost of ice for three drinks.

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