Know Your French Fries? Then, Solve This Puzzle

This Maths quiz was posted on the social media and soon enough, the world went crazy trying to figure out the answer. What was amazing was that it looked so simple, yet had people racking their brains in trying to solve it.

The Big Macs, milkshakes, and French fries make the quiz look simple, but when you take a closer look, you are nowhere closer to solving it. If only teachers in schools created maths equations using everyone’s favourite French Fries and McAloo Tikki burger, how wonderful would maths classes become!

The first line of the quiz shows three McDonald's drinks adding up to a value of 30. Next, two burgers and a drink add up to 20. Finally, four portions of chips and one burger add up to nine. The last line asks you to use the information provided to answer how much one burger and one portion of chips multiplied by a drink is worth.

Most people struggled as they did not notice that the third sum involved two portions of chips, whereas the fourth line only has one. Yet others remain confused about the order in which to multiply and add in the final line. However, to work out the answer, you first need to understand the cost of each product.

From the first line, you know that each drink is worth 10, while from the second line you learn that a burger is worth five. From the third line (remember there are a total of four packet of chips) you learn that each packet of chips is worth one.

In the final, apply the rule that multiplication comes before addition. You multiply the chips by the drink, totalling 10, before adding the burger, which gives you the answer as 15.

The quizwas posted on the McDonald’s international website. While, at first, most people thought they had it wrapped up. But then, they were flummoxed when their answer was declared as a wrong answer! Yes, this quiz too was a clever, tricky question which is why people were pulling out their hair.

Okay, here’s why 15 is the correct answer. There are not one but two packets of French fries in the third row, and just one in the fourth row. Do you get it now?

Another way to solve the problem is to apply the rule of BODMAS, according to which, you first multiply, then divide. BODMAS abbreviation stands for B (Brackets first), O (Orders i.e. Powers and Square Roots), DM (Division and Multiplication), AS (Addition and Subtraction).

Here’s how you work it out: 10+10+10=30; 10+5+5=20; 5+2+2=9; apply BODMAS (5+(1×10), to get 15!

So far, over 1,500 people attempted the puzzle, with varying results.

Last year, a similar tricky maths question asked people to figure out how many passengers were originally on a train. The quiz went as follows: 'There were some people on a train. Nineteen people get off the train at the first stop. Seventeen people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train. How many people were on the train to begin with?'

The correct answer turned out to be 65, which one arrives at by subtracting the 17 people who just boarded from the current number of passengers 63, to get 46. Then you add the 19 passengers who got off to arrive at 65.