Problem

Solving
Strategy or
Heuristics
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of this lesson, the students will be able to:
1. Define what a problem is.
2. Enumerate and discuss the families of the problem.
3. Apply the different problem-solving strategies or
heuristics.
A STORY IN A JEEPNEY
 A STORY IN A JEEPNEY
You enter a jeepney with six other passengers on
the first stop of its route. On the second stop, four
people come in and two get off. On the third stop,
seven people come in and five get off. On the fourth
stop, eight people come in and three get off. On the
fifth stop, thirteen people come in and eight get off.
How old is the driver?
 A STORY IN A JEEPNEY

Did you start counting passengers in the

streetcar? If you did, here is your first
lesson:
Do not start solving a problem before you
read it!
WHAT IS A PROBLEM?
 WHAT IS A PROBLEM?

Problem
A problem is a situation that confronts the
learner, that requires resolution, and for which
the path to the answer is not immediately
known.
 PROBLEM VS. EXERCISE
An exercise is a question that you know how to resolve
immediately. Whether you get it right or not depends on
how expertly you apply specific techniques, but you don’t
need to puzzle out what techniques to use.

In contrast, a problem demands much thought and

resourcefulness before the right approach is found.
 WHAT IS A PROBLEM?
Mathematical Problem Defined
A problem is a task for which:
 The person confronting it wants or needs to find a
solution.
 The person has no readily available procedure for
finding the solution.
 The person must make an attempt to find a solution.
 PROBLEM AND PROBLEM-SOLVING
Problem solving is the process by which this new
situation is analysed and resolved. It begins with an
understanding of all the aspects of the problem and ends
when a satisfactory answer has been found.

Problem solving is not just an exercise carried out in the

classroom, but a skill that is used continually in business
and daily life.
FAMILIES OF PROBLEM

1.Recreational Problems
2.Contest Problems
3.Open-Ended Problems
 RECREATIONAL PROBLEMS
This is also known as brain teasers; these problems usually complex
to little formal mathematics but, instead, rely on the creative use of
basic strategic principles.

Examples:
a. Who makes it but has no need for it? Who buys it but has no use
for it? Who uses it but can neither see nor feel it? What is it?
Answer: A coffin.
b. What has a head and a tail, but no body?
Answer: A coin.
 CONTEST PROBLEMS
They are usually encountered during formal exams with limits.
Often requiring specialized tools and, or ingenuity to solve.
Numerous exams at the high school and undergraduate level
involve sophisticated and exciting mathematics.

Examples:
quiz bee, term exams, and quizzes.
 OPEN-ENDED PROBLEMS
These are mathematical situations that are sometimes vaguely worded
and possibly have many solutions.

Example: Arrange all 12 numbers from 1-12 in the box below

without being close to the numbers that follow or precede them.
 OPEN-ENDED PROBLEMS
Answer: In this problem, we can have many ways to present the
answer. As we can see, no numbers in the box are close (vertically,
horizontally, diagonally) to the numbers that follow or precede them.
 HEURISTICS

Heuristics are procedures or strategies that do

not guarantee a solution to a problem but
provide a more highly probable method for
discovering the solution to a problem.
PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGIES/
HEURISTICS

 Working Backwards
 Guess and Check
 Make a List
 Look for a Pattern
PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGIES/
HEURISTICS
 Make a Diagram
 Divide and Conquer
 Solve a Simpler Problem
 Act It Out
 Adopting a Different Point of View
COMMON PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGIES

 Write an equation
 Make a Table
 Use a formula
ANSWER THE PROBLEM:
A teacher bought five flags of different countries, to
use in a class activity. She added them to the flags she
already had in the classroom. She borrowed four more
flags, but two of these weren’t used. In the end ten
flags were used in the activity. How many flags were
there in the classroom already?
 W B
G
ORKIN
ACKWARDS
This entails starting with the end results and
reversing the steps you need to get those
results, in order to figure out the answer to
the problem.
E XAMPLE 1 :

When Angela climbs on board there are already

some people sitting the multicab. At the first stop,
an additional five people get on and two people get
off. On the second stop, seven people get on. All 15
people get off the multicab at the terminal. How
many were on the multicab when Angela climbed
on?
SOLUTION:
Angela gets on,
1st stop,
2nd stop,
Total getting off the multicab

By working backwards,
Therefore, there were
four people in the
multicab at the
beginning.
EXAMPLE 2:
In a math quiz bee, all the competitors were on stage together.
After three minutes, a fifth of the students had made mistakes and
were excluded from the competition. In the next five minutes half
of those remaining were eliminated because of difficult questions.
Two minutes later four students were found cheating and were
sent home. After fifteen minutes of the competition half of the
remaining students had made mistakes and left the stage. In the
last few minutes one more competitor made unfortunate mistake
and one contestant was left as the winner of the competition. How
many students originally entered the competition?
S OLUTION: Start at the end and reverse the process.
Winner
A few minutes before the end there was one
more contestant 2 students
Fifteen minutes into the competition, double the number 4 students
Two minutes into the competition, add four to the number 8 students
Five minutes into the competition double the number 16 students
Three minutes into the competition a fifth of the
competitors had been eliminated so
16 students = 4/5 of the total.

Therefore, there were 20 students entered in the math quiz bee.

 GUESS & CHECK
Often referred to as “trial and error”.

It is important to recognize that an “error” really

isn’t a mistake at all. It helps to guide the problem
solver to the next attempt at the answer.
 GUESS AND CHECK
Essential features:

 Make an “educated” guess at the solution.

 Check the guess against the conditions of the
problem.
 Use the information obtained in checking to make a
better guess.
 Continue this procedure until the correct answer is
obtained.
E XAMPLE 1 :
Complete the table below by adding the numbers 3, 7, 8,
9 on the squares to come up a sum of 15 horizontally,
vertically, and diagonally.

2 6
5
4
E XAMPLE :

The product of the ages, in years, of three

teenagers is 4590. None of the teens are
the same. What are the ages of the
teenagers?
SOLUTION:
• The possible ages of the teenagers are 13, 14, 15, 16,
17, 18, 19. From this list, we choose three numbers
whose product is 4590.

• If we let x, y, and z be the ages, then .

• Note that the product ends in a zero, so, has 2 and 5

as factors, which means that at least one of the
numbers must be even and/or must be 5 as a factor.
SOLUTION:
Age 1 Age 2 Age 3 Product
15 16 18 4320 Too small
15 16 19 4560 Too small
15 17 18 4590 Correct

Therefore, the ages of the teenagers are 15,17, and 18.

 MAKE A DIAGRAM
The diagram represents the problem in a way
we can see it, understand it , and think about it
while looking for the next step.
E XAMPLE 1 :
In the class of Miss Loreto, the desks are organized in
equal rows. Jelai sits in the desk that is second from the
front and fourth from the back. There is one desk on the
right and three on the left of Jelai’s desk. How many
desk are in the room?
E XAMPLE :
Mark used a shovel to dig his own swimming pool. He figured he
needed a pool because digging it was a hard work and he could
use it to cool off after working on it all day. He also planned to
build a rectangular concrete deck around the pool that would be 6
feet wide at all points. The pool is rectangular and measures 14
feet by 40 feet. What is the area of the deck?
 MAKE
A L IST
 Making a list is a systematic method of
organizing information in rows and/or columns.
 By putting given information in an organized
list, you can clearly analyse this information and
then solve the problem by completing the list.
E XAMPLE :
Carla is planning to bake a cake for a birthday party. She
decided to bake three layered cake with different flavors.
She bakes chocolate cake, carrot cake, and blueberry cake.
In how many ways can Carla arranged the flavors into
three layered cake?
SOLUTION:
Make an organized list to help you solve the problem.
• Chocolate, Carrot, Blueberry
• Chocolate, Blueberry, Carrot
• Carrot, Chocolate, Blueberry
• Carrot, Blueberry, Chocolate
• Blueberry, Chocolate, Carrot
• Blueberry, Carrot, Chocolate

Therefore, there are 6 different ways to arrange the flavors

into three layered cake.
 L OOK FOR A PATTERN
This strategy entails looking for patterns in the
data in order to solve the problem, that is, the
solver looks for items or numbers that are
repeated, or a series of events that repeat.
E XAMPLE :
The Valenzona family are working on a fitness program.
On the first day, they jog around the VSU oval three
times; on the second day, seven times; and on the third
day, eleven times, and so on. In what day will they reach
their goal of jogging around the oval 35 times?
 D IVIDE AND C ONQUER

If a problem can’t be solved right away, divide it

into parts, and solve one part at a time. A problem
which at first seems difficult becomes easier if you
divide it into parts and solve one part at a time.
E XAMPLE 1:
Shasha is planning to paint an abstract painting. She
used 30% green paint, 45 % red paint, and 25%
blue paint. If 100 mL of blue paint is added to 500
mL of the mixture, what is the percentage of blue
paint in the new mixture?
SOLUTION: We divide the solution into
parts.
a. Find the volume of blue paint in the original mixture:

b.Find the total volume of blue paint:

c. Find the total volume of the whole mixture:

d.Calculate the new percentage:

Thus, of the new mixture is blue paint.

 SOLVE A SIMPLER
P
Sometimes you canROBLEM
find the answer to a problem by
solving another problem that has simpler numbers or
fewer cases. To use this strategy, first use a simpler or
more familiar case of the problems. Then use the
same concepts and relationships to solve the original
problem.
EXAMPLE 1:
It takes 15 children ten hours to complete
half of a group project, how long will it take
four children to complete the other half?
SOLUTION:
Let’s start by taking a simpler
example:
If it takes two children ten hours to complete a task, how
long will it take four children?
If two children take ten hours, then one child would take
20 hours.

How long would it take four children?

Four children would take five hours.

SOLUTION:
Now start working out how long it would take one
child to complete the work.

15 children complete their half of the task in ten hours.

One child would complete half the task in 150 hours

Thus, four children would need 37.5 hours to complete

the other half of the task.
 ADOPTING A DIFFERENT
POINT OF VIEW
 Sometimes, a problem can be solved in a more efficient
and interesting manner if we approach it from a
different point of view.
 That is, instead of considering the problem in the most
direct and obvious manner, a different approach may
yield the answer quickly and more efficiently.
 It also might reveal some interesting reasoning.
E XAMPLE :
There are 16 children entered in the ping-pong
tournament at Visca Elementary School. The
tournament is a single elimination tournament.
This means that if you lose a game, you’re out of
the tournament. If you win a game, you move on
the next round. How many games must be played
to have a winner.
SOLUTION:
Instead of counting directly the number of games by
making a diagram of the possible matchups, one
may focus on the winner’s point view. Noting that
the tournament is a single-elimination – once you
lose, you are out, and the tournament proceeds until
one person is left. This means that to have a winner,
15 players should be eliminated and that requires 15
games.
Hence, there will be 15 games in the tournament.
 ACT IT OUT
Act out the problem by trying to do what the
people or things in problem do. This strategy
works because you are actually doing the
problem.
E XAMPLE 1 :
Five students are sitting in a row of chairs
along one side of the room. Jennifer sits
besides Allison but not beside Peta. Steven
sits in the second seat on the left. Alison sits
between (but not necessarily next to) David
and Peta. Steven sits beside David. Who sits
in the middle seat?
SOLUTION:
Jennifer sits in the middle seat.

David, Steven, Jennifer, Allison, Peta

EXAMPLE 2:
Two adults and two children have been
stranded on an island in a river. They must
cross the wide river to safety, but they only
have one canoe. The canoe can either take
one adult or two children at a time. How can
they safely reach the other side?
SOLUTION:
Suppose we let A for each adult and C for each
child.

Let us create three areas. One four the island, the

second for crossing the river and the third for the
safe river bank.
 Remaining on the Crossing the river Safe river bank
island
AA remain CC CC
AAC C C
AC A AC
ACC C A
A CC ACC
AC C AC
C A AAC
CC C AA
CC AACC