Question: Seth lost 17.5 pounds. Jerome lost three times that many pounds and Veronica lost 1.5 pounds more than Seth. How many pounds did the 3 people lose in total?
Answer: Seth = 17.5 pounds. Jerome = 3 * 17.5 = 52.5 pounds. Veronica = 17.5 + 1.5 = 19 pounds. Total = 17.5 + 52.5 + 19 = 89 pounds. The 3 people lost a total of 89 pounds. The answer is 89.

Question: Cassidy is grounded for 14 days for lying about her report card, plus 3 extra days for each grade below a B. If Cassidy got four grades below a B, how long is she grounded for?
Answer: First find how many days Cassidy is grounded for the low grades: 4 grades * 3 days / grade = 12 days. Then add that time to the 14 days she's grounded for lying to find the total grounding length: 12 days + 14 days = 26 days. The answer is 26.

Question: A laboratory has 22 beakers of liquid in a fume hood, and 8 of the beakers have copper ions in them. Adding three drops of a solution will turn the liquid in a beaker blue if there are copper ions present. If the beakers are tested one by one for copper ions and 45 drops are used before all 8 beakers with copper ions are found, how many beakers without copper ions were tested?
Answer: There were 45 / 3 = 15 beakers tested to find all the beakers with copper ions. Thus, 15 - 8 = 7 beakers without copper ions were tested. The answer is 7.

Question: Alice had 10 dozens of watermelons. She sold 40% of it yesterday and 1/4 of the remaining today, How many watermelons are left to be sold tomorrow?
Answer:
Ten dozens of watermelons are equal to 10 x 12 = 120 watermelons. Yesterday, Alice sold 120 x 40 / 100 = 48 watermelons. So, there are only 120 - 48 = 72 watermelons left for today. Today, Alice sold 72 x 1 / 4 = 18 watermelons. Hence, 72 - 18 = 54 watermelons are left to be sold tomorrow. The answer is 54.