Exercise of the Week #11
English this week, returning with a longer-response comprehension question. Let’s make this a five-marker. Be as detailed as possible to avoid losing marks.
Last Week’s Answers
To solve this, we first need to decrypt each dubious doubloon stratagem!
Thomas Tew suggests they split the pile into twenty. So, each part is worth one-twentieth. Then he tells the others to take six parts: six twentieths. That would leave eight twentieths for Tew himself! There’s a difference of two twentieths (or one tenth) between what he’d be getting and what they’d be getting.
John Bowen suggests they each take half of 60% of the treasure. Half of 60% is 30%, and John would get the remainder - 40%! There’s a difference of 10% between his cut and theirs.
Bill Teach (that’s Blackbeard, by the way) says they should each take 0.75 of one half of the treasure. We need to convert the half into four-eighths: 0.75 (or three quarters) of this is three eighths. So, Teach would be getting four eighths: a one-eighth difference.
So, Tew would get one tenth more; Bowen would get 10% more, and Teach would get one eighth more. Who’s being most devious?
We need to convert these mixed measures so that we can compare them. Let’s make them all percentages.
We can start with one eighth: Take 100 and divide this by 8: to divide by eight quickly, just halve three times.
100 goes to 50 goes to 25 goes to 12.5. So, one eighth is the same as 12.5%.
Then, we can easily find one tenth as a percentage, as 1/10 is the same as 10/100, which is 10%.
And as 12.5% is bigger than Bowen and Tew’s 10%, Teach is the most devilish, and if his method was followed, he’d be awarded a whopping £12,500,000 more than the others!
