{"id":2367,"date":"2011-12-21T18:40:42","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T23:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2019-08-30T16:49:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:49:06","slug":"math-in-the-real-world-counting-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/math-in-the-real-world-counting-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Math in the Real World: Counting Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The practical applications of math in the real world, from intrepid U.S. Post Office employee James Wu.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.jenniferdziura.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2011\/08\/JamesWu.jpg\" alt=\"elevator\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a wall panel for an apartment building in Boston. It has five floors, and each floor has the same number of apartments. I have a package for #49&#8211;the buzzer doesn&#8217;t work very well, but they tell me to go up. What floor do I go to?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Work out a solution before clicking &#8220;More&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution:<\/strong> The image shows apartments from 35 to 59. How many apartments is that? <i>To count members of a consecutive set, subtract and then add one: 59 &#8211; 35 + 1 = 25 apartments.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Since there are five floors and an equal number of floors per apartment, that&#8217;s five apartments per floor.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the first floor contains 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39.<\/p>\n<p>The second floor contains 40, 41, 42, 43 and 44.<\/p>\n<p>The third floor contains 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49.<\/p>\n<p>The answer is &#8220;the third floor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>See the <a href=\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/storeitemshow.cfm?ItemID=101\">Manhattan GRE Word Problems Strategy Guide<\/a> for more (and more challenging) counting problems.<\/p>\n<p>Also see this waggish video about more complicated counting situations:<\/p>\n<p>\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=M7PlJM2aCho<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The practical applications of math in the real world, from intrepid U.S. Post Office employee James Wu. &#8220;This is a wall panel for an apartment building in Boston. It has five floors, and each floor has the same number of apartments. I have a package for #49&#8211;the buzzer doesn&#8217;t work very well, but they tell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gre-strategies","category-math-gre-strategies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7194,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions\/7194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}