Challenge Question set 29/04/05

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The bits left over by burning ten candles will make one extra candle if you melt them all together. If you burned 1000 candles, how many extra candles could you make?
 
Wow! What a toughie! The answer did, I admit, seem quite easy. But you didn't think I would make a Challenge THAT easy, did you? Most of you put the answer 100 candles. Some of you said it would be between 1-100, depending on how big you made the candles. However, you needed to think along the lines that the bits left over from 10 candles make one new one.
I agree that you could make 100 new candles from the 1000, because 1000 ÷ 10 = 100
However, if you then burn the 100 candles and reuse the bits left over, you get 100 ÷ 10 = 10
Then, if you burn these 10 candles, you can make 1 more from the bits left over.
100 + 10 + 1 = 111. So you can make 111 new candles from the original 1000.

 
Well done to all of you who had a go. Because it is all about having a go (and if people find out the answer - well, that's a bonus!), I picked 3 people at random to receive a prize for this week. They are:
Jamie (Year 3), Oliver (Year 4) and Melissa (Year 4)
 
A prize could have been given for spotting my grammatical error - shouldn't it be 'burnt' and not 'burned'?