Question

Jenny has 1.5 times more tennis balls than Janis. Together they have 50 tennis balls. Jenny wrote this equation to model the number of tennis balls they have, where x represents the number of tennis balls that Janis has. How many tennis balls does each girl have?

x + 1.5x = 50

Answer 1

Janis: 20 Jenny: 30

Explanation:

The first thing you need to do is to combine like terms. 1.5x +x is 2.5x

so now we have 2.5x = 50

Now we have to simplify the equation to try and have x by itself, with no numbers in front. If we divide each side of the equation by 2.5 (since 2.5 is being multiplied by x) we can cancel out the numbers on that side and simplify the other side.

2.5x = 50

/2.5 /2.5

x= 20

Once you divide on both sides you now have the amount of balls Janis has (20). All you have to do now is find the number of balls Jenny has.

To do this, you can subtract the number of balls Janis has (20) by the total amount they both have together (50)

50-20 = 30

And now you have the amount of balls Jenny has

I hope this helps :)