Santa has lots of mixed up socks in his sack! if he has 6 green socks, 4 gold socks, 8 black socks and 2 red socks, what is the minimum he needs to pull out of his sack to get a matching pair?

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Based on the problem above, the minimum he needs to pull out of his sack to get a matching pair is 5

Best answer that i found on yahoo ok   set :   x= length of 2nd piece in cm  x- 3= length of 1st piece in cm  x-4= length of 3rd piece in cm  then since you know they all came from the 20 cm ribbon you add them together and set them equal to 20x+ x-3 +x-4 = 20  3x - 7= 20  3x= 27  x= 9  the shortest piece is the third piece which is x- 4  x-4  9-4 = 5  the length of the smallest piece is 5 cm.  the other lengths are  9 cm  6 cm