Question

Mr. Toshio lent out 11 rulers at the beginning of class, collected 4 rulers in the middle of class, and gave out seven at the end of the class. He had 18 rulers at the end of the day. How many rulers did he start with?

a) 14
b) 15
c) 16
d) 17

Answer 1

To find out how many rulers Mr. Toshio started with, subtract the rulers collected and given out from the total number of rulers at the end of the day. Mr. Toshio started with 11 rulers.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find out how many rulers Mr. Toshio started with, we need to subtract the rulers he collected and the rulers he gave out from the total number of rulers he had at the end of the day.

Starting with 11 rulers, Mr. Toshio collected 4 rulers, so we subtract 4 from 11, which equals 7 rulers. Then, Mr. Toshio gave out 7 rulers, so we subtract another 7 from the previous result of 7 rulers. This leaves us with 0 rulers. Therefore, Mr. Toshio started with 11 rulers.