Question

Mr. Lopez wrote the equation 32 g + 8 g minus 10 g = 150 on the board. Four students explained how to solve for g.

Alyssa: “I added 32 and 8 to get 40, subtracted 10 to get 30, and then subtracted 30 from 150 to find the value of g, which is 120.”

Rahul: “I added 32, 8, and 10 to get 50, and then I subtracted 150 to find the value of g, which is –100.”

Toni: “I subtracted 18 from 32 to get 14, which I then divided into 150 to find the value of g, which is 10 and StartFraction 5 Over 7 EndFraction.”

Wilhem: “I added 32 and 8 to get 40, subtracted 10 to get 30, and then divided both sides by 30 to find the value of g, which is 5.”

Which student’s work is correct?

Answer 1

Wilhem

if you do your own math and replace g with 5 the answer will be 150 so Wilhem is correct.

Answer 2

Wilhem, my favorite student by the way, is correct.

Explanation:

When doing questions like this you want to combine like terms so:

32g + 8g - 10g does equal 30g

so 30g = 150

Now you want to simplify, since we want to get g by itself we divide by 30, and whatever we do to one side we do to the other, so 150 / 30 = 5, so my equation is

g = 5