three guards were protecting an orchard. A third met the guards, one after the other, To each guard he gave half of the apples he has at the time and two extra . Eventually he escaped with just one apple. How many apples did the thief take? Fellow up questions for extension. What if he had 2 left? 3 left? 4 left?

The thief took 36 apples.

Step-by-step explanation:

This problem can be solved from end to beginning.

The thief ends up with a single apple. This happed after he gave half of the apples he had and two extra apples.

Thus, adding two apples 1+2=3 and doubling the result, the thief had 3*2=6 apples when he met the last guard.

Before that, he gave 2 apples to the second guard, thus he had 6+2=8 apples. Doubling it 8*2=16 is the number of apples he had when met the second guard.

Doing this again, 16+2=18. 18*2=36.

The thief took 36 apples.

Gave 18+2=20 to the first guard. He had 36-20=16 now.

Gave 8+2=10 to the second guard. He had 16-10=6 now.

Gave 3+2=5 to the third guard and got away with just one apple

step-by-step explanation:

if you want to solve percent error follow these steps.

1. subtract the accepted value from the experimental value.

2. take the absolute value of step 1.

3. divide that answer by the accepted value.

4. multiply that answer by 100 and add the % symbol to express the answer as a percentage.

if you want to solve percent of change just do this.

1. work out the difference (increase) between the two numbers you are comparing.

2. divide the increase by the original number and multiply the answer by 100. if your answer is a negative number then this is a percentage decrease.

hope this : )