This is part of the tiled floor of the magic shop Spell It Out.
Five different types of tile make up the design. How many of the tiles have the pattern 
?
A. 18
B. 19
C. 17
D. 21
E. 20
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Simple steps to solve word problems:
- Underline key information
- Determine what they are trying to ask, and what you will need to solve it
- Eliminate any non-essential information
- Draw a picture, graph, or equation
- In moments of high stress like exam taking, always work with the paper they give you to avoid careless mistakes.
- Solve.
Approach: the best way to solve this is to just mark each square that has this pattern. It should be easy to do, so I will just provide a summary of how many you should find in each letter (also note that the pieces can be rotated):
S: 4
P: 3
E: 2
L: 1
L: 1
I: 0
T: 0
O: 4
U: 2
T: 0
Total: 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 0 = 17
\fcolorbox{red}{grey!30}{Therefore the answer is C, $17$.}
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