Question

There are 40 people at a party. If 8 boys leave and 2 girls come, then the number of boys will be equal to the number of girls. Find the initial number of boys and girls.

Answer 1

25 boys, 15 girls

Explanation:

You can setup 2 equations where b is the number of boys and g is the number of girls to get
`b+g=40` and
`b-8=g+2`. Simplifying the second equation gets you
`b-10=g` insert
`b-10` for g in the first equation to get
`2b-10=40`. Simplify this equation to get
`b=25`. To find the number of girls, substitute 25 for b in the first equation to get
`g=15`