Question

There are three times as many fiction books as non-fiction books in a library. 120 fiction and 24 non-fiction books are loaned out. There are now twice as many non-fiction books as fiction books. How many books were in the library?

How do I work this out step by step?

Answer 1

672

Explanation:

If we call the number of non-fiction books as x, the number of fiction books would be 3x. Therefore: we can write the following equation:

3x - 120 = 2(x - 24) ← the 3x - 120 and x - 24 represents the new number of books

3x - 120 = 2x - 48

x - 120 = 48

x = 168 which means 3x = 3 * 168 = 504, therefore the total number of books is 168 + 504 = 672.