Spare Change Quiz | Math

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. I want to buy some envelopes. A large envelope costs five cents and a small envelope costs three cents. How much money will it cost to buy fifteen large envelopes and seven small ones?

Answer: $0.96

Fifteen envelopes priced at $0.05 each would be 15 * $0.05, or $0.75. Seven envelopes priced at $0.03 each would be 7 * $0.03, or $0.21. Together, they add up to $0.96.

2. I have 22 pennies, 13 nickels, 19 dimes, 22 quarters, and 3 silver dollars. If I use all of this money to buy an item with a final price of $10.73, how much change will I get?

Answer: $0.54

The pennies amount to $0.22, the nickels to $0.65, the dimes to $1.90, the quarters to $5.50, and the silver dollars to $3.00. Together, they amount to $11.27. Subtract $10.73 from $11.27 to get the change as $0.54.

3. I have 24 dimes. How many quarters must I obtain in order to have a total of $5.65?

Answer: 13

The dimes make a total of $2.40. This means I need $3.25 more in order to get $5.65. Quarters are worth $0.25. Divide $3.25 by $0.25 to get thirteen quarters.

4. I have a collection of 40 coins. My collection consists only of nickels and dimes. If the number of dimes in my collection is eight more than the number of nickels, how much money do I have in my collection?

Answer: $3.20

Let N represent the number of nickels in my collection. There are eight more dimes than nickels, so the number of dimes can be represented as N + 8. The sum of these two numbers must equal 40. Set up an equation: N + N + 8 = 40. Combine like terms to get 2N + 8 = 40, and then subtract 8 from both sides to get 2N = 32. Divide each side by 2 to find that there are sixteen nickels in my collection.

Therefore, there must also be 24 dimes in my collection. The sixteen nickels are worth $0.80 total, and the dimes are worth $2.40. Combined, their total value is $3.20.

5. I have a jar consisting of 21 nickels, some dimes, and some quarters. I know that the number of dimes is equal to the number of quarters. The total amount of money in my jar is $4.55. How many coins are in the jar?

Answer: 41

The nickels amount to $1.05. Subtract that from $4.55 to find that the combined value of quarters and dimes is equal to $3.50. We know that the combined value of a quarter and dime is $0.35. That combined amount fits into $3.50 exactly ten times. We can then determine that there are ten quarters and ten dimes (one in each combination.) 21 (nickels) + 10 (dimes) + 10 (quarters) is equal to 41 coins total.

6. I have the same amount of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters in one of my collections. The total value of the coins is $77.08. How many of each type of coin do I have in my collection?

Answer: 188

We know that the combined value of a quarter, dime, nickel, and penny is $0.41. When you divide $77.08 by $0.41, you get 188. There are 188 combined values in $77.08, and there is one of each type of coin in each combined value. Therefore, there are 188 of each type of coin in my collection.

7. How many different combinations of dimes, nickels, and/or pennies total up to $0.20?

Answer: 9

You can have 2 dimes; 1 dime and 2 nickels; 1 dime, 1 nickel, and 5 pennies; 1 dime and ten pennies; 4 nickels; 3 nickels and 5 pennies; 2 nickels and 10 pennies; 1 nickel and 15 pennies; or 20 pennies, a total of nine combinations.

8. I have 20 coins in a jar. Exactly one-fifth of them are quarters. There is only one dime in the jar. I have twice as many pennies as I do nickels. How much money total do I have in the jar?

Answer: $1.45

We know that there must be four quarters, because 1/5 of 20 is 4. There are a total of fifteen pennies and nickels combined. Let the number of nickels equal N. The number of pennies is twice as much, so it can be represented as 2N. Their sum must equal 15, so you can set up an equation: N + 2N = 15. Simplify to 3N = 15, and then to N = 5. If there are five nickels, there must be ten pennies.

The quarters amount to $1.00, the dime to $0.10, the nickels to $0.25, and the pennies to $0.10. When their values are combined, they are worth $1.45.

9. I go to the store and want to buy 28 bottles of Coca-Cola, priced at 7 for $3.84. Using only pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, what is the fewest number of coins necessary to make my purchase?

Answer: 63

Because 7 * 4 = 28, I must make four purchases at $3.84, or $15.36 total. To get the smallest amount of coins, use the largest value of the allowable coins (quarters) for as long as you can. In each dollar, there are four quarters. In fifteen dollars, there are 60 quarters. You still have $0.36 to spend. You can use another quarter, bringing your total number of quarters to 61. You have $0.11 that can be spent using a dime and penny. You will end up using 63 as your lowest number of coins.

10. I was bored one day, so I broke into my spare change drawer and decided to count all of the money in there. I had a huge number of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. In fact, I had $232.68 in spare change alone! But, I forgot how many coins I had! All I can remember is that half of my coins are quarters; my nickels amount to $19.10; the number of dimes is an even perfect square in the 300's; and that the number of pennies is the square root of the number of dimes. Help me! How many coins are in my spare change drawer?

Answer: 1448

You should ignore the number of quarters for now, because you don't know how many coins make up half of the total. You do know that the dimes, nickels, and pennies make up half the number of coins. Let's move on to the nickels. You have $19.10 in $0.05 coins, or 382 nickels total. Let's look at the dimes and pennies now.

The only two perfect squares in the 300's are 324 and 361. Only 324 is even, so that must be the number of dimes. The number of pennies is the square root of 324, which is 18. We now see that there are a total of 724 dimes, nickels, and pennies. Because that is half, 724 must be the number of quarters. 724 + 724 is equal to 1448, which is the total number of coins. You can use the total amount to check your work. The 724 quarters amount to $181, the 324 dimes to $32.40, the 382 nickels to $19.10, and the 18 pennies to $0.18. Together, they are worth $232.68. That's a lot of spare change.

Source: Author xxharryxx

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor crisw before going online.
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Spare Change Trivia Quiz

This is a quiz that involves problems about money. All questions will involve American money. A penny is worth one cent, a nickel five, a dime ten, and a quarter is worth a twenty-five cents. Have fun!

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