Problem 1: How far did you go?

A car travels downhill at 72 mph (miles per hour), on the level at 63 mph, and uphill at only 56 mph The car takes 4 hours to travel from town A to town B. The return trip takes 4 hours and 40 minutes.


Find the distance between the two towns.

Problem 2: How many ways can you make 24?

Using only the numbers 1, 3, 4, and 6, together with the operations +, −, ×, and ÷, and unlimited use of brackets, make the number 24. Each number must be used precisely once. Each operation may be used zero or more times. Decimal points are not allowed, nor is implicit use of base 10 by concatenating digits, as in 3 × (14 − 6).


As an example, one way to make 25 is: 4 × (6 + 1) − 3.