MINDBENDERS

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1 Six friends attending a festive party brought an average of eleven mince pies each. Keith brought twice as many mince pies as Natalie, who brought three times as many as Steve. Steve and Natalie’s pies together matched the number that Grace brought – and that was twice as many as Julia. If Jo brought two mince pies, how many did Keith bring? 2 Cressida is writing Christmas cards to her family. Her first three cards took her 1 minute 33 seconds, 1 minute 54 seconds and 2 minutes 5 seconds. If, after her fourth card, the average time she has spent per card is 1 minute 50 seconds, how long did it take Cressida to write her fourth card? 3 Marnie has fewer than a thousand sequins attached to the top she’s wearing for New Year. The sum of the digits in the number of sequins is seven, the hundreds digit being twice the value of the ones digit. If the total number is even, how many sequins does Marnie have on her top altogether?