On page 209 of his novel Sooley, John Grisham writes, "During a TV timeout at 3:56 Central led 39 - 34, ...   At that pace, both teams would score at least 90."

Check Grisham's math by determining the final score of the game if each team continued to score at the same rate.

Here are some facts you need to know:
Men's college basketball games have two twenty minute halves.
The 3:56 mentioned in the book is the time left in the first half when the score was 39 - 34.

Extra credit: What is the minimum number of points and the maximum number of points that could have been used at the 3:56 mark to ensure that 90 points would have been reached (that is, 90 to 99 points)?

                 



Solution to the Problem:

The score would have been 97 to 85.   For the extra credit: the minimum score is 36 and the maximum score is 39.

It appears that John Grisham didn't check his math.

To solve the problem, set up a proportion.   The time 3:56 means that the teams scored 39 and 34 points in 16:04. Convert that to   Now, set up the proportion:
  and solve for x:

x = 97.09 or 97 points.

Similarly, set up the proportion:   and solve for x:

x = 84.64 or 85 points.

For the extra credit, set up similar proportions:



Solving for x, you get 36.15 and 39.765 respectively, so the scores that work are 36 to 39.


Correctly solved by:

1. Colin (Yowie) Bowey ** Beechworth, Victoria, Australia
2. Veena Mg ** Bangalore, Karnataka, India
3. K M Thomas and Ivy Joseph ** Pune, Maharashtra, India

** Solved the extra credit