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Queue

Age 5 to 7
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Chiu from Arcadia High School and Harry from St James' School sent in well explained solutions. Harry describes how he solved the problem:

The answer is 6 students. I numbered each of the students, 1 for the front and 25 for the back. Julia was obviously no. 19. I counted from 25 back 14 places (starting with 25 so the solution would be right). I found that Urvisha was no. 12. Then I counted the numbers between 12 and 19 and got 6.

Chiu drew a diagram to help answer the problem:


From the picture above, there are 25 students queuing in a straight line. Since Julia is the 19th from the front, Urvisha is the 14th from the back, which means there are 6 students between Julia and Urvisha.

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The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice.

NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.

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