Let m = the total number of medals.
To find the total number of medals we can use either of the clues they gave us.
If Tara's team received 8 medals and that was 1/3 of the medals. That must mean that:
m x 1/3 = 8
What number divided by 3 is 8? Well, that is 24. Thus, the total number of medals is 24.
Note: we can check to see if 1/2 of 24 is 12, the total number of medals Jennifer team received, and it checks out!