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The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how

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Sajjad1994
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The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how [#permalink] New post   29 Oct 2023, 09:13
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The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how quickly widely disbursed information could be gathered using social media. Competitors tried to locate 10 red weather balloons that had been tethered above random locations around the world in return for a $40,000 prize. The winning team located all of the balloons in just 9 hours, using an incentive-based strategy to encourage information sharing: The first person to send the correct coordinates of a particular balloon to the team received $2,000, but whoever recruited that person received $1,000, and the recruiter's recruiter received $500, and that person's recruiter received $250.

Select for 3 payments per balloon the amount of the prize money that the winning team would have remaining if they had to pay 3 people for each balloon located, and select for 4 payments per balloon the amount of the prize money that the winning team would have remaining if they had to pay 4 people for each balloon located. Make only two selections, one in each column.­

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3 payments per balloon 4 payments per balloon
$1,000
$2,500
$5,000
$7,500
$10,000
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3 payments per balloon: $5,000 4 payments per balloon: $2,500
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MartyMurray
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Re: The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how [#permalink] New post   29 Oct 2023, 21:05
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The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how quickly widely disbursed information could be gathered using social media. Competitors tried to locate 10 red weather balloons that had been tethered above random locations around the world in return for a $40,000 prize. The winning team located all of the balloons in just 9 hours, using an incentive-based strategy to encourage information sharing: The first person to send the correct coordinates of a particular balloon to the team received $2,000, but whoever recruited that person received $1,000, and the recruiter's recruiter received $500, and that person's recruiter received $250.

Select for 3 payments per balloon the amount of the prize money that the winning team would have remaining if they had to pay 3 people for each balloon located, and select for 4 payments per balloon the amount of the prize money that the winning team would have remaining if they had to pay 4 people for each balloon located. Make only two selections, one in each column.

There's a little trick to this question, in that "9 hours" is thrown into the passage to possibly confuse us into using 9 rather than 10 in our calculations.

Otherwise, this question is pretty straightforward.

If 3 payments were made for each balloon, then for each balloon, we would have the person who sent the coordinates and 2 recruiters. So, the cost per balloon would be $2,000 + $1,000 + $500 = $3,500 per balloon.

Since there are 10 balloons, the total cost of 3 payments per balloon would be $3,500 x 10 = $35,000.

The question asks for "the amount of the prize money that the winning team would have remaining." So, we subtract: $40,000 - $35,000 = $5000.

If 4 payments were made per balloon, there would have been 1 more recruiter per balloon for $250. We could add up the payments per balloon again, but since we're just adding an additional $250 spent per balloon, we can simply subtract $250 x 10 from what was left in the previous scenario. $5000 - ($250 x 10) = $2,500.

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$5000, $2500
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Re: The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how [#permalink] New post   28 Jan 2024, 08:44
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I misread here and understood 3 payments as paying for 3 ballons instead of all 10... Same with 4.
Hence I wrongfully did: (2000 + 1000 + 500 + 250) *3 and the substract from 40.000 but it was not making any sense...
Lost a lot of time here! :(
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Re: The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how [#permalink] New post   16 Apr 2024, 02:12
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Sajjad1994 wrote:
The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how quickly widely disbursed information could be gathered using social media. Competitors tried to locate 10 red weather balloons that had been tethered above random locations around the world in return for a $40,000 prize. The winning team located all of the balloons in just 9 hours, using an incentive-based strategy to encourage information sharing: The first person to send the correct coordinates of a particular balloon to the team received $2,000, but whoever recruited that person received $1,000, and the recruiter's recruiter received $500, and that person's recruiter received $250.

Select for 3 payments per balloon the amount of the prize money that the winning team would have remaining if they had to pay 3 people for each balloon located, and select for 4 payments per balloon the amount of the prize money that the winning team would have remaining if they had to pay 4 people for each balloon located. Make only two selections, one in each column.­

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Responding to a pm:
­
The question gives us something like a pyramid scheme for incentives. First level gets 2000, second gets 1000, third gets 500 and fourth gets 250. If a person noticed the balloon and directly informed the team, they would have to pay him only $2000 and nothing else to anybody for that balloon. But if the team informed X about the balloon, X informed some of his friends say 'Y and Z' and Y informed some of his own firends say 'M, N and P' and say if N noticed the balloon, N got $2000, Y got $1000 and X got $500. This is the structure. 

Total money they had was $40,000. 

If for each balloon, 3 people were paid, total money paid = ($2000+ $1000+ $500) * 10 = $35,000
Money leftover = $5000

If for each balloon, 4 people were paid, total money paid is another $250*10 i.e. $2500 so leftover reduced by $2500.
Money leftover = $5000 - $2500 = $2500

ANSWER: $5000, $2500
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Re: The Red Balloon Challenge was an experiment aimed at determining how [#permalink]
16 Apr 2024, 02:12
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