TJ Prep Problems

TJ Prep practice problems  for our students and readers. The problems provide a very small sampling of what Optimal TJ Prep students work with.

A Mathematics Problem for TJ/AOS/Blair/SHSAT (Medium). Target Tie 30-75 seconds.

A model fruit stand has layers of rows of fruits, modeled by magnetic balls that are painted and textured like apples. Each layer of fruit (except the lowest)  has one less fruit than the layer below it. If the bottom row has 48 "fruits" and the top row has 8 "fruits", how many layers of "fruits" are there and how many "fruits" are required to make this arrangement?

A Geometry Question for TJ/AOS/Blair/SHSAT Test Prep (Difficult). Target Time. 35-80 seconds.

A circle O with radius 6 unit is drawn. If the sector AOB (120 deg) is removed and the remainder of the circle is folded into a cone such as O becomes the vertex of the cone. What is the volume of the cone. [Hints. Vol of a cone = 1/3 Pi r^2h and you can imagine a pizza with 6 slices from which 2 slices have been removed, now imagine you are folding this virtual (imagined) leftover pizza into a cone.]