"age" word problems: boy's age 3X sister's, ages total 16

kianamalele

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Oct 30, 2008
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I am super lame in algebra and I need some help in completing some questions. They are word questions and i need help on several of them i will post a couple at a time to not overwhelm the boards. I would greatly appriciate anyone's help in solving these word problems and I need to verify my work so please give verifciation on the solution as well. Thank you!!!

QUESTION #1: A boy's age is three times the age of his sister. Their ages together total 16 years. What is the age of each?

QUESTION #2: If three-fourths of a man's age is 36 years, how old is he?

THAT'S IT FOR NOW, Thank you!
 
Re: Just TWO MORE WORD QUESTIONS

A boy's age is three times the age of his sister. Their ages together total 16 years. What is the age of each?

Take the time and effort to write out the names of things, particularly of whatever it is that you are after. For instance, in this problem, one approach would be as follows:

Let x represent the sister's age.

Now, can you name the boy's age in terms of the sister's age?

???? represents the boy's age (from the words ""A boy's age is three times the age of this sister.")

Now that you have these two items named, find some statement that something is equal to or the same as something else and write your equation based on that phrase or statement. In this case build your equation based on the statement "Their ages together total 16 years." Now, go ahead and solve for x. Then be sure to go back to the original problem and answer all the questions asked. Check your answer by seeing if the original statement holds true for your results.

Apply this same technique for you next problem. If you need more help, come back and show us what you have done so far and where you are having problems.
 
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