It is the last day of school at St. Agnes School for Boys. The nuns, who are normally very strict, decide to reward the students good behavior this year by allowing them to have a few cookies to go with lunch. They place a plate of cookies at the end of the table and place a sign that says, "Take 3 or 4 cookies at most."

Timothy, seeing the sign, ignores the other food and piles quite a bunch of cookies on his plate. He calmly gets a cup of milk, walks to his seat and proceeds to enjoy his meal, smiling brightly at the stunned nuns. The oldest nun, having none of this goes over to Timothy, and asks, "Has the devil taken you my boy, or could you not read the sign that clearly states that you are to take only 3 or 4 cookies at most?" Timothy gave a response, to which the stunned nun left Timothy with his cookies and replaced the sign.

How many cookies did Timothy take, and why did the nun allow him to have this many cookies?

As a bonus question,

What did the nun change the sign to say so as to allow the original maximum intended number of cookies without allowing for a similar incident to occur?

(In reply to Another idea by Math Man)

lol, I like your thinking, but I believe a nun would not accept any excuse if this were the case.

Posted by Joshua on 2012-09-07 19:36:09