Question

A box had twice as many grapes as a basket. Once 2 kg of grapes were added to the basket, it contained 0.5 kg more than the box. How many kilograms of grapes are in the basket now? (it's not 3kg or 1.5kg)

Answer 1

3.5kg

Explanation:

Let original weight of grapes in box be X and weight of grapes in basket be Y.

From the first sentence
X = 2Y (weight in box = 2 times weight in basket) --- (1)

If you add 2kg of grapes to basket, the weight of grapes in basket = Y + 2

From the second statement

Y + 2 = X + 0.5

Subtracting Y from the LHS gives 2 = X - Y + 0.5

Subtracting 0.5 from both sides gives 2-0.5 = X - Y or X - Y = 1.5 --- (2)

Substituting for X from the first equation in (2) we get
2Y - Y = 1.5 or Y = 1.5kg

But this is the original weight of the grapes in the basket. Since we have added 2 kg of grapes to the original weight, we get the weight of grapes in basket now as 1.5 + 2.0 = 3.5kg