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Help i am in need of help

Help i am in need of help-example-1
User Mindastic
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2 Answers

4 votes

You can start by writing equations with the given information

1) You know that together, Mindy and Troy ate 9, so you can write

M+T=9

2) Then, it says that Mindy ate 3, so M=3

3) Troy ate 1/4 of the total cake, however we don't know what the amount of the total cake is, so we can represent it as x, T=1/4x

4) Plug in these equations into the first equation, 3+1/4x=9

5) Solve for X, Subtract 3 from both sides to get 1/4x=6

6) Divide 1/4 on both sides, x=(6รท1/4)

x=24

Hope this helped :)

User Changtung
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6.4k points
2 votes

The equation you should first write, where m is the number of pieces Mindy ate, t is the number of pieces Troy ate, and 9 represents the number of pieces they ate together, would be:


m + t = 9


Next, you can plug in the other information you were given. Mindy ate three pieces, so plug in 3 for m. Troy ate 1/4 of the entire cake, so plug in 1/4c for t:


3 + 1/4c = 9


^That is an equation you could use from just plugging in the information from the problem. To solve, subtract 3 from each side to isolate the variable:


1/4c = 6


Finally, divide each side by 1/4. When you need to divide by a fraction, you can always multiply by its reciprocal to get the same results. That means dividing each side by 1/4 is the same as multiplying each side by 4:


c = 6 * 4


c = 24


There were 24 total pieces of cake.

User Brent Mannering
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5.4k points