[Question]: The sum of Cooper’s, Dante’s, and Maria’s ages is 31. Dante is twice as old as Cooper. Maria is one year older than Dante. How old is Cooper?
[Answer]: Let X be the age of Cooper. So Dante is X * 2 years old and Maria is X * 2 + 1 year old. The sum of Cooper’s, Dante’s, and Maria’s ages is X + (X * 2) + (X * 2 + 1) = 31. Combining like terms, we get X * 5 + 1 = 31. Subtracting one from both sides, we get X * 5 = 30. Dividing both sides by 5, we get X = 6 years old.
So the answer is 6.

[Question]: James is trying to decide which trail is faster to hike. One trail is 20 miles and mostly downhill, so James can cover it at 5 miles per hour. The other trail is 12 miles, but it's mostly uphill, so James will only be able to cover 3 miles per hour and will have to take an hour break halfway through. How many hours faster is the fastest hike?
[Answer]: First find how long the first trail takes to hike: 20 miles / 5 miles / hour = 4 hours. Then find how long James spends hiking the second trail: 12 miles / 3 miles / hour = 4 hours. Then add the 1 hour break James has to take on the second trail: 4 hours + 1 hour = 5 hours. Then subtract the time for the first trail from the time for the second trail to find the difference: 5 hours - 4 hours = 1 hour.
So the answer is 1.

[Question]: Noah’s bedroom light uses 6 watts per hour. His office light is much brighter so he can see to work and uses three times as much energy. The living room light has a much larger space to cover and has to be more powerful, so it uses four times as much energy as his bedroom light. If Noah leaves all those lights on for two hours, how many watts has he used?
[Answer]:
Noah’s bedroom light uses 6 watts per hour, so it would use 2 * 6 = 12 watts in two hours. His office light uses 3 times as many watts as his bedroom light, so it uses 3 * 6 = 18 watts per hour. In two hours, the office light would use 18 * 2 = 36 watts. The living room light uses 4 times as many watts as his bedroom light, so it uses 4 * 6 = 24 watts per hour. In two hours, the living room light would use 24 * 2 = 48 watts. Thus, if Noah leaves all those lights on for two hours, he has used 12 + 36 + 48 = 96 watts.
So the answer is 96.