Exercises for Problem Solving

Polya’s Four-Step Problem-Solving Strategy

1. Understand the problem. You must have a clear understanding of the problem. To help you focus on
understanding the problem, consider the following questions.
■ Can you restate the problem in your own words?
■ Can you determine what is known about these types of problems?
■ Is there missing information that, if known, would allow you to solve the problem?
■ Is there extraneous information that is not needed to solve the problem?
■ What is the goal?

2. Devise a plan. Successful problem solvers use a variety of techniques when they attempt to solve a problem.
Here are some frequently used procedures.
■ Make a list of the known information.
■ Make a list of information that is needed.
■ Draw a diagram.
■ Make an organized list that shows all the possibilities.
■ Make a table or a chart.
■ Work backwards.
■ Try to solve a similar but simpler problem.
■ Look for a pattern.
■ Write an equation. If necessary, define what each variable represents.
■ Perform an experiment.
■ Guess at a solution and then check your result.

3. Carry out the plan. Once you have devised a plan, you must carry it out.
■ Work carefully.
■ Keep an accurate and neat record of all your attempts.
■ Realize that some of your initial plans will not work and that you may have toB devise another plan or
modify your existing plan.

4. Review the solution. Once you have found a solution, check the solution.
■ Ensure that the solution is consistent with the facts of the problem.
■ Interpret the solution in the context of the problem.
■ Ask yourself whether there are generalizations of the solution that could apply to other problems.

Solve the problems below. Show your complete solutions. You may use any approach or strategy listed above in
devising a plan as long as it is mathematically sound. Use clean yellow papers.
1. To encourage his son in the study of algebra, a father promised to pay his son P8 for every problem he solved
correctly but the son need to give back P5 for each incorrect solution. After 26 problems, the son did not earn or lose
any money. How many problems did the boy solve correctly?

2. A frog is at the bottom of a 17-ft well. Each time the frog leaps, it moves up 3 feet. If the frog has not reached the
top of the well, then the frog slides back 1 foot before it is ready to make another leap. How many leaps will the frog
need to escape the well?
3. In a department store, a hat and a jacket together cost Php 1000. If the jacket costs Php300 more than the hat, what
are the costs of the hat and the jacket?

4. An egg vendor broke all the eggs that he was delivering to a local store. He could not remember how many eggs there
were in all. However, he did remember that when he tried to pack them into packages of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, he had one left
over each time. When he packed them into packages of 7, he had none left over. What is the smallest number of eggs he
could have had in the shipment?

5. You need to buy groceries at the supermarket, deposit a check at the credit union, and purchase a book at the bookstore.
You can complete the errands in any order; however, you must start and end at your home. The driving time in minutes
between each of these locations is given in the following figure.

Find a route for which total driving time is LESS THAN 30 minutes.

6. Nothing is known about the personal life of the ancient Greek mathematician Diophantus except for the information
in the following epigram.
“Diophantus passed 1/6 of his life in childhood, 1/12 in youth, and 1/7 more as a bachelor. Five years after his
marriage was born a son who died four years before his father, at 1/2 his father’s (final) age.”

How old was Diophantus when he died? Assume that his age, when he died, is a counting number

End of Exercise