solving algebraic word problems

ninacs

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a man is now 6 time as old as his son. in 6 years the father will be 3 time as old as the son will be then. find their ages.
 
ninacs said:
a man is now 6 time as old as his son. in 6 years the father will be 3 time as old as the son will be then. find their ages.

What have you done so far?

The first step should be to define a variable or variables to represent the unknowns in the problem.

You're asked to find the ages, so it makes sense to me to do something like this:

Let s = son's age now
Since the problem says that the father's age now is 6 times the son's age, we know that
6s = father's age now

What happens to each of their ages after 6 years have passed? Won't each of their ages INCREASE by 6 years?

In 6 years, the son's age will be s + 6, and the father's age will be 6s + 6.

And we know this....six years from now,

father's age = three times son's age
6s + 6 = 3(s + 6)

There's the equation you need to answer the question. Solve for s, which we've defined as the son's age NOW. And you know that the father's age NOW is 6s...once you have the value of s, you can find the father's age too.
 
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