Three boys agree to divide a bag of marbles in the following manner. The first boy takes one more than half the marbles. The second takes a third of the number remaining. The third boy finds that he is left with twice as many marbles as the second boy. The original number of marbles
(a)is 8 or 38
(b)is 14 or 32
(c)is 20 or 26
(d)Cannot be determined from the given data
Answer
Answer (as printed): D
Explanation
If the second boy takes one-third of a certain number of marbles, the third boy is left with two-thirds of that number, which is twice the number with the second boy, regardless of the total number of marbles. Hence, the total number of marbles cannot be determined.
Explanation as extracted from the printed page; notation may be imperfect.