Q: Elsie has a specific amount of wet wipes in a container in the morning. Throughout the day, she refills the container with 10 more wipes after using up 20. By nighttime, she only has 60 wipes left. How many wipes were in the container in the morning?
A: Let w be the number of wet wipes Elsie had in the morning. Throughout the day, she used w - 20 wet wipes. Once that happened, she had to refill the container resulting in w - 20 + 10 = w - 10 wet wipes. By nighttime, she had w - 10 = 60 wipes. So then, w = 60 + 10 = 70. She started with w = 70 wipes. The answer is 70.

Q: Susie's pet lizard Moe takes 10 seconds to eat 40 pieces of cuttlebone each day. How long would it take Moe to eat 800 pieces?
A: If it takes Moe 10 seconds to eat 40 cuttlebones, then in one second she eats 40 cuttlebones / 10 seconds = 4 cuttlebones / second. Since the cat eats 4 pieces of cuttlebone in 1 second, 800 pieces will be 800 cuttlebones / 4 cuttlebones / second = 200 seconds. The answer is 200.

Q: Porche has 3 hours to get all her homework done. Her math homework takes her 45 minutes. Her English homework takes her 30 minutes. Her science homework takes her 50 minutes. Her history homework takes her 25 minutes. She also has a special project due the next day. How much time does she have left to get that project done?
A:
She has 180 minutes to do work because 3 times 60 equals 180. She has already spent 150 minutes on homework because 45 plus 30 plus 50 plus 25 equals 150. She has 30 minutes to finish her project because 180 minus 150 equals 30. The answer is 30.