CHALLENGE 1 QUESTION SHEET

THE HARDEST MATH PROBLEM

STUDENT CONTEST
Carlita Kahn has become the world’s latest
celebrity chef! She ditched boring old menu
items like hamburgers and spaghetti for a style
of cooking known as fusion cuisine. Carlita
mixes bold flavors from around the world, and
people line up around the block for her spicy
barbecued chicken sushi and squid pudding.
The business has grown so quickly that
Carlita is having trouble maintaining the
excellent quality of the food while serving so
many people. So she’s hired an assistant—
that’s you! Help Carlita run her
restaurant by answering the question
that matches your grade level.

GRADE 6 GRADE 7 GRADE 8

Carlita has received her very
first celebrity birthday party
reservation for tomorrow
night, so she needs you to act
fast! Carlita wants to make her
signature dish, Turkey Surprise,
but needs it to be 225% of the
original recipe to feed the
large crowd.
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Carlita has received an offer
to bottle her Spicy Secret
Sauce (better not to know
what’s in it!) and sell it in
stores. Here are the details:
Carlita pays:
• $7,500 in design fees for
packaging and labeling
Carlita plans to establish
a second restaurant, open
five days a week, 50 weeks a
year. Here are her costs:
• Rent: $7,200/month
• The average customer pays
$45.47
• Carlita’s average food cost

per customer: $20.18

• For the first 10,000 bottles,
Secret Recipe for Turkey • Insurance: $4,200/year
5% of the sale price of each
Surprise (Original) • Carlita hires 2 servers for
bottle in delivery fees
• 2½ pounds turkey 8 hours/day and a part-time
• For each bottle over helper for 4 hours/day.
• Cherries, equal to ¼ of the
10,000, 3.5% of the sale She pays $15 per hour
amount of turkey
price of each bottle in and pays employer Social
• Chocolate drops, equal to delivery fees Security tax (6.2% of gross
0.35 of the amount of cherries pay) and Medicare tax
• $0.87 per bottle to pay
How many ounces of chocolate (1.45% of gross pay).
for the ingredients, glass
drops will Carlita need? bottle, etc.
How many customers would
Carlita plans to sell the sauce Carlita need to serve each
Hint: One pound is the same as
for $1.49 per bottle. If she year for the restaurant to
16 ounces.
sells 26,000 bottles, how break even? Round to the
much profit will she make? nearest whole number.

Hint: Profit = sales minus Hint: “Break even” means

expense. Sales = price per sales and expenses are equal
bottle times the number of and the owner neither makes
bottles sold. nor loses money.