Yeah, should be something along the lines of "... asks for a quarter of the remaining chocolate bars". Or maybe not. Who knows?

This sounds like some SAT "make questions harder by making them more confusing" bullshit.

It's a trick question. Tracey purposely asks for "the remaining quarter", which is inherently unclear. She then exploits Rachel's confusion to run off with all 16 chocolate bars.

People like Tracey should be behind bars (pun not intended).

While we are at it, the teacher needs a slap too.

That was obviously the correct answer.

OK, start with 16 and she takes 4, so you have 12 left.

Now of that 12 she wants a quarter of them, 1/4 x 12 = 3.

Add that 3 to the 4 she took at the start and you have 7 total.

The wording makes the question confusing.

Maybe it's like Tracey ends up with 4 chocolate bars and ¢25

The quarter wasn't about candy, Rachel slings all types of dope.

A quarter is 25% of anything. If she has 12 left, 25% is 3.

The 'remaining' quarter means a quarter of what is remaining of Rachel's pile. The phrasing is odd but there really isn't any way to misconstrue it without turning the meaning into nonsense that you can't do math on.

It may feel like those should be from 1865, but those tests were only outlawed in 1965. It was not that long ago.

Illustrating once more that "English" is to "language" what "Pluto" is to "planet".

That solution assumes it's a quarter of the remaining bars. How is worded, it could be 4 more bars she wants, making it half the bars at that point.

It's badly worded, and deserves a slap.

1 slap for 7 bars is a deal

After giving the slap I take all the bars. So long, loser.

The Eminem Solution

It does say "remaining quarter" which is definitely meant to be a quarter of what's left. With word problems, you generally follow the order the statements are made. So your first assumption is correct.

16-4=12

Rachel is left with twelve bars, which we need for the next part of the statement.

12/4=3

Tracey asks for a "remaining quarter" and thus takes three.

4+3=7

Tracey now has 7 bars.

It's just a terribly phrased sentence. Appropriately worded and still coded correctly, it should say something like:

Rachel has sixteen chocolate bars. Tracey takes four from her and then asks for a quarter of what remains.

How many bars does Tracey now have?