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The battle of Mathematics and English.Question:1 rabbit saw 9 elephants while going to the river. Every elephant saw 3 monkeys going to the river. Each monkey had 1 tortoise in each hand.How many animals are going to the river?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

This question is pretty much easy at first sight, but what makes it confusing is English grammar. Especially for me. You may need to post this question in the Grammar forum, it fits there more than here. Or at least just provide one more information by adding a subject and an auxiliary verb to the riddle.

CFB:1 rabbit saw 9 elephants while going to the river.

Who was going to the river? the rabbit or the elephants? If you only added a 'subject' after 'while', then it would make the sentence obvious. Then the answer wouldn't have 2 probabilities.

Keeping the same structure would make the answer has 2 possibilities, according to me.

1- 1 Rabbit saw 9 elephants while it was going to the river etc.

Therefore, the number of animals who went to the river would be 10 (1 Rabbit+ 3 Monkeys+6 Tortoises = 10)

2- 1 Rabbit saw 9 elephants while they were going to the river etc.

Therefore, the number of animals who went to the river are 18 (9 elephants+ 3 Monkeys+6 Tortoises=18)

Do u know from where we got 6 tortoises? From monkeys, each monkey had 1 tortoises in each hand, and each monkey has 2 hands, so 3*2=6 tortoises.

Since it's proved that monkeys were going to the river, 6 tortoises will go to the river accordingly.

3-There is also a third possibility that's just crossed my mind when I read the final question. I don't know if I am a little bit overthinking but as long as it's a riddle and you stated that it's battle of Math and English, I could think of it.

CFBHow many animals are going to the river?

I noticed that the question used "simple future" while the the verb in the riddle "saw" was in the past tense. Plus the subject with its auxiliary verb I added was also in the past in order to make the tense consistent with the first sentence. If the riddle was talking about an incidence that took an action in the past tense and then the question came to ask about FUTURE. Then the final answer on the number of animals who ARE going to the river is, unknown.

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