Math Word Problems Demystified - A Self Teaching Guide

EXAMPLE:If there are 8 people at a meeting and each person shakes every

other person’s hand once, how many handshakes occurred?

SOLUTION:

GOAL: You are being asked to find the total number of handshakes if

everybody shakes everybody else’s hand.

STRATEGY: Simplify the problem using, say, 4 people, and then try to solve

it with 8 people.

IMPLEMENTATION: Assume the 4 people are A, B, C, and D. Then write

the handshakes:

AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, CD

Hence, with 4 people, there would be 6 handshakes.

Now call the 8 people A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H.

AB AC AD AE AF AG AH

BC BD BE BF BG BH

CD CE CF CG CH

DE DF DG DH

EF EG EH

FG FH

GH

There would be 28 handshakes.

EVALUATION: You can solve the problem using a different strategy and

see if you get the same answer.

Work Backwards

Some problems can be solved by starting at the end and working

backwards to the beginning.

LESSON 21 Using Other Strategies 263