Can You Solve These Super Simple Math Story Problems?

By: Stella Alexander
Estimated Completion Time
3 min
Can You Solve These Super Simple Math Story Problems?
Image: shutterstock

About This Quiz

Billy found six shells on Friday. On Saturday, he found four more. How many shells does Billy have? If you're answering ten, you're ready to master this quiz! Seeing 6 + 4 might be easier, but we're here to see if you can solve these super simple math story problems.

When you begin your math education, you start off with the basics of addition and then move onto subtraction. Your education soon includes multiplication, division, and exponents. Once you master the basics of "one plus one equals two," you're soon thrown into the world of story or word problems. Why?

Most people think that math problems are difficult enough, so adding in a story often confuses or disguises the point. This is because it is meant to test your critical thinking! Teachers use it to test whether you can solve a problem without blatantly being given the information. Can you?

If we told you Sally's parents gave her $10 every week for a month, could you calculate how much money she has at the end of the month? If Mike finds a dozen apples and gives half to his sister, do you know how many apples he has left for himself?

Math is difficult for some people, but not always! Can you solve these super simple math story problems? Let's find out!

Put those calculators away!

There were 12 cookies in a jar. Andrew takes two. How many cookies are left in the jar?
12
eight
six
10
This is a simple subtraction problem. If there are originally 12 cookies in the jar and Andrew takes two, you would have to subtract those two cookies. 12 - 2 = 10.

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Penelope buys 2 CDs every time she goes to the store. Last month, she went four times. How many CDs did she buy last month?
two
four
six
eight
This is a multiplication problem. If Penelope buys two CDs every time she goes, you'd have to multiply her trips by how many CDs she buys. If she took four trips, it's 4 trips x 2 CDs = 8 CDs

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Quincy has 12 cupcakes. If he gives an equal number to three friends, how many cupcakes does each friend get?
three
four
If Quincy has 12 cupcakes that he's sharing among three friends, that means you have to divide to find how many he gives each friend. You'd have to do 12 divided by 3 to get that each friend would get 4 cupcakes.
five
six

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There are six eggs. Sixteen more are added. How many are there in total?
20
22
In this problem, you'd just have to add the number of eggs. If 16 are added to 6, you'd have 6 + 16 = 22.
24
26

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Billy weighs 59 pounds. Chris weighs 48 pounds. How much more does Billy weigh than Chris?
five pounds
10 pounds
11 pounds
This is a subtraction problem. If Billy weighs 59 pounds and Chris weighs 48, you'd have to do 59 - 48 to get the 11-pound difference.
15 pounds

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If a pencil costs $1.00, how much do nine pencils cost?
$3
$6
$9
This is a simple multiplication problem. If each pencil costs $1 and you have nine of them, you would multiply nine pencils x $1 = $9 for nine pencils.
$12

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If Rhonda has 80 marbles stored in boxes and each box holds 16 marbles, how many boxes does Rhonda have?
four
five
If Rhonda has 80 marbles total and they are separated by 16 in each box, you'd have to divide to find out how many marbles Rhonda has. To find the answer, you'd divide 80 by 16 to get that there are fives boxes in total.
10
12

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Sally has 38 M&Ms. Anna gives her six more. How many M&Ms does Sally have now?
44
This is a simple addition problem. You would take the 38 M&Ms that Sally starts with and add the six that were given to her to get 44.
32
41
35

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Danielle has nine cookies but gives five away to Elijah. How many cookies does Danielle have now?
four
Danielle starts off with nine cookies, but she gives five of those cookies away to Elijah. This means this is a simple subtraction problem where you have 9 - 5 which equals 4.
five
six
14

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A pack of Skittles costs $2. If you wanted to buy one pack for each of your 20 friends, how much would you spend?
$10
$20
$30
$40
This is another multiplication problem. If you want to buy 20 packs of Skittles at $2 a pack, you would multiply $2 x 20 = $40.

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Steven has a total of 36 eggs. How many dozens does he have?
one
two
three
This is a simple division problem, but you'd also have to remember that there are 12 eggs in a dozen. If he has 36 eggs in total, you'd divide 36 by 12 to figure out that he has three dozen eggs.
four

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Michael has 52 Pokemon cards. James has 37. If James gives all of his cards to Michael, how many does Michael have?
100
89
This is another simple addition problem. If Michael starts with 52 and James gives him 37, this would be 52 + 37, which would give you the answer of 89.
15
22

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There are two dozen roses in a bin. Frank picks out 5 roses for his mother. How many roses are left?
seven
17
19
In this problem, you start off with two dozen roses which equals 24 roses. If Frank picks out 5 of them, this is 24 - 5, which is equal to 19.
29

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If one book costs $15, how much do 10 books cost?
$75
$105
$150
This is another simple multiplication problem. If one book costs $15, in order to find out how much 10 would cost, you would multiply the cost by 10. This would give you $150.
$120

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A school has a total of 256 students. If each class has 16 students, how many classes are there in the school?
10
12
16
This is another simple division problem. If there are 256 students in the school and 16 students in each class, you'd have to divide 256 by 16 to figure out the exact number of classes there are.
20

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Beverly has two cupcakes. If Catherine gives her two more, how many does Beverly now have?
one
two
three
four
This is another simple addition problem. If Beverly had two cupcakes and Catherine gave her two more, you would do 2 + 2 to show that Beverly now has four cupcakes.

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There are 52 cards in a deck. If Gabby takes out all four Queens, how many cards are left?
31
48
Card decks have 52 cards and there are four of each suit. If Gabby removes four cards from the deck, this would make the solution 52 - 4 = 48.
55
45

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There are four cupcakes in each case. How many cupcakes are in 21 cases?
48
76
84
For this problem, you'd just have to multiply. If each case has four cupcakes, you would multiply this by the 21 cases. 21 x 4 = 84.
100

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Tracy has 72 cookies and 12 friends coming over for a sleep over. How many cookies would each friend get if she splits the cookies evenly among them?
two
four
six
This is another division problem. If Tracy has 12 friends coming over and 72 cookies to give out, you would take the 72 cookies and divide them by the 12 friends. This would give you the answer of six.
eight

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Devin has 12 strawberries. Emily gives him a dozen more. How many strawberries does Devin have now?
12
none
24
Devin starts off with 12 strawberries. If Emily gives him a dozen, she has given him 12 more strawberries. 12 + 12 = 24.
48

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Hilary weighs 42 pounds. Isaiah weighs 49 pounds. How much more does Isaiah weigh?
7 pounds
This is another simple subtraction problem. If Hilary weighs 42 pounds and Isaiah weighs 49 pounds, you'd need to find the difference. 49 - 42 = 7.
5 pounds
10 pounds
13 pounds

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Your mom went grocery shopping and bought five dozen eggs. How many eggs did she buy?
five
12
36
60
This is another multiplication problem. A dozen eggs are 12 eggs. If your mom bought five dozen, that means she bought 5 x 12 = 60.

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William bought 120 cases of chips that total 840 bags. How many bags does each case have?
five
six
seven
In this division problem, William has 840 bags of chips that are split into 120 cases. To find out how many bags each case has, you'd take the 840 bags divided by the 120 cases and get an answer of seven bags per case.
eight

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Francesca collects 21 seashells. Her younger sister finds nine. How many seashells do Francesca and her sister have?
12
30
This is another simple addition problem. You would take the 21 seashells that Francesca has and the nine her sister has and add them together. 21 + 9 = 30.
40
11

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Jasmine bought 20 pencils. She gives fi e of them to Kevin. How many does she have left?
five
10
15
If Jasmine starts off with 20 pencils and she gives fi e to Kevin, this is a simple subtraction problem. 20 - 5 = 15.
20

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You get .10 cents for each soda can you recycle. If you recycled 100 cans, how much money would you have?
$1
$10
This is another simple multiplication problem. If you have 100 soda cans that cost .10 cents each, you would multiply .10 x 100 to get $10 for all the soda cans.
$20
$100

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There are 52 cards in a deck. If there are four kinds of suits in the deck, how many of each suit do you have?
13
There are 52 cards in a deck and four of each suit. This means you'd have to divide 52 by 4 to find that there are 13 of each suit in a deck of cards.
14
15
16

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There are eight daisies growing in the garden. Twenty-five more grow. How many daisies are there?
18
25
17
33
You start with eight daisies growing and then 25 more grow. This is an addition problem. 8 + 25 = 33.

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Lauren had a pack of 100 Skittles. She ate 21 of them. How many does she have left?
92
83
121
79
This is a simple subtraction problem. If Lauren starts off with 100 Skittles and eats 21 of them, you'd have to subtract the number of Skittles she ate to find out how many she has left. 100 - 21 = 79.

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Each student won 15 tickets at the carnival. If there are nine children in the class, how many tickets did the class win in total?
150
135
This is another simple multiplication problem. If each student won 15 tickets and there are nine kids in the class, you'd have to multiply 15 x 9 to get 135 tickets won in total.
120
105

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Xavier has 81 pieces of candy and wants to split it evenly between his 27 classmates. How many pieces would each classmate get?
nine
three
If Xavier has 81 pieces of candy, he would have to divide this by his 27 classmates. Eighty-one divided by 27 equals three, which means each classmate would get three pieces of candy.
27
24

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Greg has four crayons for his picture. Howie gives him three more crayons. How many crayons does Greg have?
seven
If Greg starts off with four crayons and Howie gives him three, this is an addition problem. 4 + 3 = 7.
10
one
13

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Matthew has 25 oranges. He gives two to Nate and four to Olivia. How many oranges does Matthew have left over?
11
13
17
19
In this problem, Matthew gives two oranges to Nate and four to Olivia, meaning he gave away six oranges. If he started with 25, you would do the following to find the answer. 25 - 6 = 19.

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If there are 16 flowers in a case, how many flower are in four cases?
34
56
64
In this multiplication problem, you have 16 flowers in each case. In order to find how many is in four cases, you'd have to multiply 16 flowers x 4 cases to get 64 flowers in total.
72

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Zoey starts off the year with 108 pieces of candy. If she wants to eat the same amount each month and be done by the end of the year, how many does she have to eat monthly?
five
nine
Zoey starts off the year with 108 pieces of candy. If she wants to be done by the end of the year and eat the same amount each month, she has to divide this amount by the 12 months of the year. The 108 candies divided by 12 months would equal nine candies per month.
12
13

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