The fruit basket riddle with hidden counts
Riddle:
A basket has apples, oranges, and bananas. There are twice as many apples as oranges, and 3 fewer bananas than apples. If the basket has 23 fruits in total, how many of each fruit are there?
Answer:
Answer: 10 apples, 5 oranges, 8 bananas. Explanation: Let oranges = x → apples = 2x → bananas = 2x – 3. Total = x + 2x + (2x -3)=23 → 5x -3=23 → 5x=26 → x=5. Oranges=5, apples=10, bananas=7. Actually 2x -3=7, so bananas=7.