Question

Camila is putting together gift bags for nurses at a local clinic. Each of the 5 gift bags contains 'x' cookies. Camila adds 3 more cookies to each bag. Altogether, the gift bags contain 20 cookies. 

a. Write an equation to represent the situation.

b. Solve the equation.

c. Explain what your solution means in the story. (what does "x" represent)

Answer 1

a. 20 = 5x + 15

b. x = 1

c. X represents the number of cookies before three more were added to each bag.

Explanation:

a. 20 is your total, or y. 5 is the amount of bags, with "x" cookies. Three more cookies are added to EACH bag, so 3*5 is 15. If you do it in slope-intercept form, the equation is 20(y)= 5x + 15 (added cookies).

b. 20 = 5x + 15

20 - 15 = 5x + 15 - 15

5 = 5x

5/5 = x

x = 1

c. Remember that x is the amount of cookies in each bag before three more were added. If you add the amount before more were added (1), and the amount added (3), you get 4. Then, you multiply the total amount of cookies in each bag and the number of bags (4*5), you get 20, which the problem says is the total number of cookies in all the bags.

hope this helps :)

Answer 2

A- X= 20÷5-3

B- 20÷5=4; 4-3=1

C- X=1

Explanation:

Okay, well we have to work backwards. 20 cookies, and she makes 5 bags. We need to find out what 'x' means. To do that, we take 20 cookies and divide it by 5. 4 cookies. Then we want to take 3 cookies out of each bag to find out how many cookies she first put in. 1 cookie.

Let's check:

bag 1:

o (one cookie)

bag 2:

o (one cookie)

bag 3:

o (one cookie)

bag 4:

o (one cookie)

bag 5:

o (one cookie)

Now we have 15 cookies left. Now let's put 3 in each:

bag 1:

o (one cookie)

v v v ( three cookies)

bag 2:

o (one cookie)

v v v ( three cookies)

bag 3:

o (one cookie)

v v v ( three cookies)

bag 4:

o (one cookie)

v v v ( three cookies)

bag 5:

o (one cookie)

v v v ( three cookies)

Now we have no cookies left, and we put 4 cookies in each. (o representing the first cookie, v representing the next three cookies)