Question

How do you solve this? Matt had some candy to give to his four children. He first took two pieces for himself and then evenly divived the rest among his children. Each child recieved four pieces. With how many pieces did he start?

Answer 1

so first 4 times 4 is 16 and then add 2 to get 18

Answer 2

You work it backwards.

-- If there were 4 children and each child got 4 pieces,
then the children got (4 x 4) = 16 pieces altogether.

-- That's what was left after he took 2 pieces for himself.
So he started with (16 + 2) = 18 pieces.