If you want a great job when you grow up, you could be an “ice cream taster.” John Harrison has done this job for more than 30 years. He first chops the carton of ice cream in half to see if the chips, nuts and swirls are evenly spread out. Then he tastes a bite, of course! Each year only about 100,000 of the 40,000,000 gallons (40 million) turn out not good enough. The fact is, most ice cream is yummy.
Wee ones: If John tastes vanilla, s’mores, chocolate peanut butter cup, and mint, how many flavors does he taste in total?
Little kids: If a sliced carton should show 18 chocolate chips, but John counts 16, does it have too many chips or too few? Bonus: How many more chips should he see?
Big kids: If John tastes 3 pints from the first 20 pints of fudge swirl, then 5 from the next 20, how many pints does he skip? Bonus: If he always tastes 1 out of every 10 pints, how many tastes does he get from a batch of 200 pints?
The sky’s the limit: John gives a low rating to 1/400th of all pints. If Edy’s makes 80,000 pints in a given week, how many will probably turn out okay?
Answers:
Wee ones: 4 flavors.
Little kids: Too few chips — and that’s an emergency! Bonus: 2 more chips.
Big kids: 32 pints, since he tasted 8 out of 40. Bonus: 20 tastes.
The sky’s the limit: 79,800 of them, since there will be 200 duds. To walk through the powers of 10: out of 800 pints, there would be 2 duds; out of 8,000 there would be 20; so out of 80,000 there would be 200 duds.
