brain teaser....I do not have the answer?

Question

3 men are traveling and decide to stop at a hotel for the night. To save money they get one room to share. The man at the front desk names the price at $30. Each man pays $10 and they are shown to their room.
After a while the man at the front desk realizes he charged too much and goes back to give them a $5 refund. But how should he split the money 3 ways??? So he gives 1 dollar to each of the men and pockets $2.

Here's the tricky part... with the refund they got, each man now paid $9 each... 9x3 is $27, the door man kept $2, that makes $29... where's that other dollar???

There are ways to figure it to $30... but doing it this way is impossible!!!

Answer 1

Thirty dollars was ponied up by the three men to start with, correct? So, you really have to figure out know where that $30 is now. It's simple:

There is $25 in the till at the front desk.
The desk clerk has $2
Each man has $1 for a total of $3

$25 + $2 + $3 = $30




The TRICKY PART is that people miss how THE PROBLEM IS CHANGED by the way the question is asked at the end:

...with the refund they got, each man now paid $9 each... 9x3 is $27

This statement makes the problem about finding only $27 while most people believe it is still about finding $30. After the men get the refund the problem is no longer about finding $30 because they got $3 back so you only have to find $27:

There is $25 in the till at the front desk.
The desk clerk has $2

$25 + $2 = $27

The problem adds the $2 that the clerk has to the $27 total given by the men to reach the confusing $29 total. As shown above, the $27 amount already includes the $2 the desk clerk has. So, adding the $2 again is wrong because it double counts the $2. Once the refund is given you do not need to find $25 + $2 + $2 = $29. You only need to find $25 + $2 = $27.

Does this help?

Answer 2

They paid $9 each = $27, minus (not plus) the $2 the clerk took = $25 (the price of the room)

The trick is when they add the 2 dollars, when you are supposed to minus it.



I can't believe some people are still stumped by this, with these $9.33 answers ....

They didn't pay $28 for the room, they ended up paying $27, because they received a $3 discount.

Answer 3

There is not other dollar $5 refund from 30 each man gets a dollar and he pockets 2..that makes 25..not 29.

Answer 4

The men astually paid 25 $ for the room not 30 $ 25+2=27 there is no missing dollar.......the premise was wrong.

Answer 5

in mathematical terms it can be seen like this:

what they paid originally (30)-money that they were supposed to get back (5)+money they actually get back (3) = 28
28/ # of people(3) = 9.33 which is how much each person paid.

the 2 dollars that the doorman kept should not be added to 27 but subtracted which will give you the 25 that was the cost. (the 2 dollars did not affect the 3 men so it shouldnt be added. However, it did affect the business which is why it should be subtracted to get the actual cost that the business was supposed to recieve)

Answer 6

they actually paid 25 for the room ( 5 dollar refund)

+ 2 more ( he pockets 2), so they actually paid 27 for the room.

They all 3 put in 10 and got 1 back so they all put 9 in = 27

Answer 7

Nothing is supposed to add to $30 once the refund is offered. They paid 25 and got cheated out of 2 dollars so the total is 27.

Answer 8

$30(total)-$5(refund)=$25

$25+3+2=$30

Answer 9

they only really paid twenty five dollars for the room because they were over charged, the clerk gave them each one dollar back and didn't tell them that they over paid five dollars just three, making all in all 28, then he pocketed the two dollars, equalling thirty total... really easy.

Answer 10

140