The information that we have is that there are 6 skittles to every 4 M&Ms.
The questio is how many M&Ms there are if we have 18 More skittles than M&Ms.
We use the ratio 6:4 to represent the relationship between skittles and m&ms.
Here we can see that if we have 6 skittles and 4 m&ms, there are 2 more skittles than m&ms.
So we can multiply this ratio (6:4) by a number so that we get a difference of 18.
For example, when we multiply it by 2 we get:
12:8
And here, there are 4 more skittles that m&ms.
The answer is that we need to multiply this ratio by 9:
6x9 : 4x9
54 : 36
this means 54 skittles to 36 m&ms.
And this time the difference between skittles and m&ms is 18 (54-36=18), as the problem states.
Thus the answer is:
How many M&Ms are there if Emery counted 18 more Skittles than M&Ms? 36