Mathville Puzzles: Risk!

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It is September in Mathville, and the weather is subtly turning to autumn. As the weather cools, people begin to go inside to enjoy indoor activities, the most popular of which is game contests (for example, Quadratics, the game where teams solve equations for prizes, or F(x), where the input is excitement and the output is fun). But the undisputed queen of the fall games is Risk!, the answer and question competition where participants can make a lot of money by solving riddles.  The competition's host, Aleph Trapeze, gives participants a clue, and the first participant to give the answer in the form of a question wins the round.  After three regular rounds and the Final Risk! round, a winner is announced, who walks away with a lot of cash.

Can you play these four rounds of Risk! and win? Below are the four clues. Give your answers to each clue in the form of a question. (For example, if the clue is "amount obtained by adding 2 and 2 together," your answer would be, "What is 4?")

Let's play Risk!

 Round 1:  Adding two letters to this word makes it shorter. 
Round 2: If you can purchase 8 eggs for 26 cents, how many can you buy for a cent and a quarter?
Round 3:  I am an odd number. Take away two and I  become even.
Final Risk: Why do people turn away in disgust from the number 288?
Contest Rules

  • You must send the solution via email to Laura Skinner at lskinner@pvcc.edu.
  • Solution due by Friday, September 5th, at 11:59 p.m. Solutions sent after the deadline will not be considered.
  • You must email the solution from your PVCC email address.
  • You must explain how you arrived at the solution -- that is, you must show your work, explain your reasoning. 
  • Only correct solutions with explanations of the reasoning used to arrive at the solution will be considered.
  • This month we have doubled the number of winners! SIX entries will be drawn from all the correct solutions, to determine 2 first, 2 second and 2 third places.
  • The first place winners will receive a $30 gift certificate to the PVCC Bookstore.
  • The second place winners will receive a $15 gift certificate to the Mermaid Express coffee cart.
  • The third winners will each receive a big Hershey’s milk chocolate bar.
  • Drawing will be conducted on Saturday, September 6th. Winners will be notified by email, and their names will be published on a blog post. Please check your email! If you are playing just for fun and you think you won't be able to come claim your prize, please note this in your email and I will remove your entry from the drawing.
  • The solution to the puzzle will be published on the blog after winners have been announced.
  • Winners must pick up their prizes by Friday, September 12th, at 4  p.m., or they forfeit their prizes. Prizes must be picked up in person. Please present your student I.D.
Image by D.J. Whitaker.