The problem states that Bert split all his cookies evenly among 4 contestants, so the total number of cookies Bert had can be found by multiplying the number of cookies each contestant received by the number of contestants:
4 * 24 = 96
Therefore, Bert had a total of 96 cookies to start with.
We can also write an equation to represent the problem, where c represents the number of cookies Bert had to start with:
c / 4 = 24
This equation states that the number of cookies Bert had divided by the number of contestants (4) is equal to the number of cookies each contestant received (24).
To solve for c, we can multiply both sides of the equation by 4:
c = 4 * 24
c = 96
So the solution confirms that Bert had 96 cookies to start with.