Question

The Brady family received 31 pieces of mail on January 28. The mail consisted of bills,letters, and magazines. How many bills did they receive if they received three more letters than ads, the same number of bills as ads, and five more magazines than letters.

Answer 1

The Solution.

Let the number of ads be = x

Number of Letters = x+3

Number of bills = x

Number of magazines = x+3+5 = x+8

Given that the total number of mail is 31, we have

`x+x+3+x+x+8=31`

Collecting the like terms, we get

`\begin{gathered} x+x+x+x+11=31 \\ 4x=31-11 \\ 4x=20 \\ \text{Dividing both sides by 4, we get} \\ x=(20)/(4)=5 \end{gathered}`

So, the number of bills they received is 5.

Hence, the correct answer is 5 bills.