The Goofy Gardener had some very strange plants in his greenhouse. He raises purple pigeon plants that grow 1 foot a day and green monster ferns that grow 2 feet a day. Today the Goofy Gardener found that he has a purple pigeon plant 1 foot high and a monster fern 7 feet high. In how many days will the monster fern be three times as high as the pigeon plant?
In this question, it is probably possible to represent it as an algebraic equation, but I think it would be easier to look at it from a different perspective. Because the Goofy Gardener (weird name, by the way) found that the pigeon plant was 1 foot high and the monster fern was 7 feet high, we can represent the height with a table.
Plant | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 |
Pigeon Plant | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Monster Fern | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 |
We can stop at day 5, because on this day, the monster fern is three times as big as the pigeon plant. So, you have your answer:
The monster fern will be three times as big as the pigeon plant in 5 days.