Question

Jeff is lining up child and adult bicycles at the bike shop where he works. The number of adult bicycles is nine less than three times the number of child bicycles. There are 42 adult bicycles. How many children’s bicycles are there?

Answer 1

Jeff deduces that there are 17 child bicycles at the bike shop by setting up an equation based on the given relationship between the number of adult and child bicycles and solving for the unknown number of child bicycles.

Step-by-step explanation:

To solve the problem, let's denote the number of child bicycles as c and the number of adult bicycles as a. According to the information provided, the number of adult bicycles is nine less than three times the number of child bicycles. This can be expressed as an equation: a = 3c - 9. Given that there are 42 adult bicycles, we can substitute this value into the equation, resulting in 42 = 3c - 9.

Now, we can solve for c (the number of child bicycles) by following these steps:

1. Add 9 to both sides: 42 + 9 = 3c, which becomes 51 = 3c.
2. Divide both sides by 3 to isolate c: 51 / 3 = c, which results in c = 17.

Therefore, there are 17 child bicycles at the bike shop.

Answer 2

x=child bicycles
42=adult bicycles

42=3x-9 add 9 to both sides
51=3x divide both sides by 3
17=x

There are 17 child bikes