Posted by Joel on November 01, 2002 at 18:24:11:
In Reply to: What English-geeks love and Math-geeks hate... posted by MathBard on November 01, 2002 at 17:36:03:
: AMBIGUITY... a trial lawyer's best-friend and a Mathematician's enemy!
: A poorly worded problem. The semantics would lead me to interpret it just like MR. G did. However, the OTHER way would make the portions more equal. Perhaps we need a sociologist/anthropoligist to interpret this one!
: : $40,000 was won in a lottery. After taxes of 25 per cent, the money was divided as follows: the mother received twice as much as the three sons, the two sisters received 500 dollars in addition to 1/5 as much as the mother. How much did each receive?
: : Please show step by step. Thank you for your help.