Question

Nick's pond was stocked with 50 fish and an additional 5 fish are added each week. Mark's pond was stocked with 15 fish and an additional 10 fish are added each week. Assuming no fish die or are removed, when will Mark's pond have more fish in it than Nick's?

A) After 5 weeks
B) After 10 weeks
C) After 15 weeks
D) After 20 weeks

Answer 1

Using equations to represent the growth in fish population for both ponds and solving for the week number, Mark's pond will have more fish than Nick's after 8 weeks, which is not one of the provided choices, suggesting a typo. Assuming a typo, it would be after 5 weeks.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine when Mark's pond will have more fish than Nick's, we need to create equations that represent the number of fish in each pond week by week and find the point at which Mark's pond surpasses Nick's. Let's use w to represent the number of weeks. For Nick's pond, the equation is:

Nick's Fish = 50 + 5w

For Mark's pond, the equation is:

Mark's Fish = 15 + 10w

To find out when Mark's pond will have more fish, we'll set the equations equal to each other to solve for w:

50 + 5w = 15 + 10w

Subtract 5w from both sides:

50 = 15 + 5w

Subtract 15 from both sides:

35 = 5w

Divide by 5:

7 = w

So, after 7 weeks, Mark's pond will have the same number of fish as Nick's. Since we're looking for when Mark's pond has more fish, the answer is after 8 weeks, which is not one of the provided options, indicating a possible typo in the original question. Assuming a typo, the answer would be after 5 weeks (Option A), since it is the closest to the correct answer of 8 weeks.