Question

While reading your morning newspaper, you notice that \[4\] pages are missing. One of the missing pages is page number\[10\]. The back page of the newspaper is page number \[32\]. What are the numbers of the other three missing pages?

Answer 1

Hint: We are given a newspaper numbered upto \[32\]. We know that one paper contains four numbers, two starting successive numbers and two end successive numbers. Using this, since we are given that one of the missing page numbers is \[10\], we can also find the other three missing page numbers.

Complete step-by-step solution:
We know that one paper contains four page numbers, two starting successive numbers and two end successive numbers. So we have a total of \[8\] pages. Thus first page contain page numbers \[1,2,31,32\]. Second page contain page numbers \[3,4,29,30\]. Third page has page numbers \[5,6,27,28\]. Fourth page has page numbers \[7,8,25,26\], the fifth page has page numbers \[9,10,23,24\]. If we go so on, eighth page will have \[15,16,17,18\] page numbers. But we are given that page number \[10\] is missing. Since it is on the fifth page, along with page number \[10\], page numbers \[9,23,24\] must be also missing. So the \[4\] page numbers that are missing are \[9,10,23,24\].

Note: This is to note that unlike binding copy where only two successive pages numbers can be missing if we tear off a page from it, the newspapers are not bonded and a single piece of paper has four page numbers. Hence missing a page of a newspaper leads to missing four page numbers.