Question

two boxes of apples contain a total of 24 apples. if you halve the number of apples in the first box and add 4 apples to the second box, the total changes to 20 apples. how many apples are in each box initially?

Answer 1

There was 16 apples in the first box and 8 apples in the second box initially.

Answer 2

16 in first and 8 in second

Explanation:

Let the number of apples be x in the first box then the number in the second box will be 24-x

if we half the number of apples in first box we get
`(x)/(2)`

And we add 4 apples in the second box we get
`24-x+4=28-x`

Since the apples in the two boxes were 20 we get

`(x)/(2)+28-x=20`

`x+56-2x=40`

After simplification we get:

x=16

Hence, number of apples in first box were x that is 16

And number of apples in second box were 24-x that is 24-16 is 8