My friend Andrew was throwing a very grand party and wanted to borrow from me 100 wine glasses. I wanted to send them through my neighbour’s servant Harry.

Just to give an incentive to Harry to deliver the glasses intact I offered him 30 paise for every glass delivered safely and threatened to forefeit 90 paise for every glass he broke. On settlement, Harry received 24 Rupees from me.

How many glasses did Harry break ?

( Given: 1 Rupee = 100 Paise )

Let the # glasses broken by Harry be n.
Then by the problem:
.3(100-n) - .9n = 24
Or, 100 - n - 3n = 80
Or, 4n = 20
Or, n = 5 

Hence, Harry broke 5 glasses.

Posted by K Sengupta on 2007-03-30 10:39:53