Discover the solution to the “$250 Painting” riddle! Learn how to break down this tricky question step-by-step to determine the actual profit made by buying and selling a painting twice. This guide includes a clear explanation and final result for a fun and challenging riddle.
The “$250 Painting” Riddle Explained: Calculating the Total Profit
Riddle Overview:
The riddle is as follows:
- You bought a painting for $250.
- You sold it for $300.
- You bought it again for $400.
- You sold it again for $450.
The question asks: How much did I earn?
At first glance, the sequence of buying and selling may seem confusing, as the amounts vary. The key to solving this is carefully tracking each transaction to determine the total profit.
Step-by-Step Solution to the Riddle
Let’s break it down into each transaction to calculate profit or loss individually:
- First Transaction:
- Bought for $250 and sold for $300.
- Profit from the first transaction = $300 – $250 = $50.
- Second Transaction:
- Bought for $400 and sold for $450.
- Profit from the second transaction = $450 – $400 = $50.
- Adding the Total Profit:
- Total profit = $50 (first transaction) + $50 (second transaction) = $100.
Conclusion:
The total amount earned, or final profit, is $100.
Why This Riddle Works
This riddle challenges your ability to manage and calculate multiple transactions separately. It can be easy to get mixed up by focusing on the total amounts spent and earned instead of viewing each buy-and-sell event as an independent transaction. By analyzing each one on its own, we find that the combined profit is straightforward: $100.
Final Answer:
The answer to the riddle is $100.
This riddle is a great example of careful calculation and encourages looking at each part of a sequence independently, which can be useful in everyday math problems and finance!
