I think if one is accustomed to a “lap” as a unit of exercise–not a unit of distance–the implication is reasonably clear.
“Mary ran four laps [of the track], John ran [the track] two times more than Mary. How many laps did John Run?”
If this math problem was given with as addition practice (which usually happens before multiplication lessons in school), the answer expected could be six. If it was connected with a multiplication lesson, the answer would be eight. It’s still poorly worded.
For addition, I’d write “Mary ran four laps. John ran two laps more than Mary. How many laps did John Run?”
For multiplication, “Mary ran four laps. John ran two times as many laps than Mary did. How many laps did John Run?”
I think the question is ambiguous enough that 6, 8 and 12 are all valid interpretations of the question.
Sort of like this scenario: It’s Friday March 4, and Joe says “are you coming to the barbeque next Saturday?” Technically, the next Saturday is March 5, but most people (at least where I’m from) use “next” to mean “the next one after this Saturday” and thus would mean Saturday March 12.
After voting for sleeping furiously, I clicked again to say this. And discovered that many had beat me to it. I’m hardly sure that thrice as much and twice more are synonyms: the latter is just very ambiguous. (“Twice again as much” is a less ambiguous way to mean thrice as much.)
A friend once invited me to shop at his friend’s jewelry store where I would get a 300% discount! :eek: I guessed correctly that this meant 2/3’s off (and learned visiting the shop without introduction that the “300% discount” was available to all, not just acquaintances of the owner).
How?
Oops. Please ignore the “with” in the first sentence, and replace the “than” in the last sentence with “as”.
This is one of those questions where you have to get in the mind of the test maker. I would have surmised that 8 is the answer that was being fished for, given a choice of 6 or 8. 12 is the answer that I would have given if there was no multiple choice. “Two times more than” literally should mean, in my opinion (Mary’s distance) + 2(Mary’s distance), so 12. However, the phrase is often sloppily used, so I would have assumed the author just made a mistake and meant “twice as many as” instead of “two times more.” If the answer being fished for was 6, the “two times more” phrasing is just weird and almost intentionally ambiguous to me. If you’re just looking for 4+2, why not phrase it “John ran two more laps than Mary?” Why would you phrase it “two times more?”
So, just a terribly worded question all around.
The answer is 12.
You are welcome.
“n times more than x” means “nx + x.” There are no other interpretations that are valid.
This is not debatable.
12 is the answer.
It’s worse than lazy, it’s an abomination.
When I am God-Emperor of the universe, one of my commandments will be “thou shalt not speak as if multiples of ‘less than’ has any meaning.”
8 strikes me as the “correct” answer, with 6 being a plausible but somewhat unlikely answer.
I still don’t get how people can interpret the question in a way that makes “12” a valid answer. Getting 12 to work reminds me of that “Ghoti is pronounced ‘fish’” thing.
This bothers me enough that I am willing to spend all of my Internet points defending my answer. 
The problem is that the word times has two equally relevant meanings, one as a word representing the act of multiplication and the other as a synonym of ‘instances of an action.’
There is also a problem with the word ‘more.’ ‘John ran two times more [laps] than Mary’ is pretty poorly constructed. A much better choice would be 'John ran two times (or twice) as many laps as Mary.
Basically, this teacher translated some math symbols into English just going word for word, without consideration for sentence meaning or syntax. Time to get these STEM teachers into English courses!
(Also, reaching 12 requires some sort of strange logic and understanding of English, and anyone who thinks that that is the answer should go into exile on an island with all the people who make their chicken salad with Miracle Whip).
No way! Here’s how I figure that logic plays out:
Crazy Person: Here, I brought you 10 cookies.
Rational Thinker: Thanks, but actually, we need three times more than 10.
CP: Ok, I guess you need 40 then?
RT: No, silly. Three times 10 is 30!
Why does it take a strange understanding of the English language to insist that “more than” means something different from “as many as?”
Please show your work.
I have to agree that it is crazy to bring only ten cookies.
That said, three times AS MANY AS 10 is 30, yes. But three times MORE THAN 10 is 30 plus 10.
(first, let me say I’m having this discussion in good fun . . . I’m not always sure both if my humorous intent is clear or if people’s responses are equally light-hearted. I don’t think you’re crazy or strange . . . just wrong 
).
So you’re saying that in my little dialogue above, that the person designated ‘CP’ correctly interpreted the words that ‘RT’ said, and that ‘RT’ mispoke; that two times more than 10 is in fact 30?
Well, at least you’ll always have more cookies than you can handle on Miracle Whip Island.
Wait! Are they Famous Amos cookies?
Even ten of those would bo too many. Those cookies are AWFUL.
Yes. “As many as” does not mean “more than.”
It does in this context.
Whether it should mean that is a different argument.