Mikayla2010 said:
A group of friends decides to buy a vacation home for $120000, sharing the cost equally. If they can find one more person to join them, each persons contribution will drop by $6000. How many people are in the group?
I'm very bad at story problems. Basically, I don't know what x would be and have no idea where to begin with the equation.
Thank you
I'm always startled when people look at a problem like this one and say "I have no idea where to begin"
What are you asked to find?
In reading the problem, I see this: "How many people are in the group"
Ok...we don't KNOW how many people are in the group. But, we can represent that "unknown" number as x. Suppose that there are x people in the origiinal group.
Now...this group is going to buy a cottage that costs $120,000. If there are x people splitting the cost, wouldn't the cost for each person be 120000/x?
If there are
x people in the group, and the cottage costs $120,000, then each person's share will be
120000/x
"if one more person joins the group, each person's cost will drop by $6000"
Ok....
Instead of "x" people, you have ONE MORE person...x + 1 people.
If you have (x + 1) people, sharing a cost of $120,000, then each person's share would be 120,000 / (x + 1)
And the NEW per-person share is $6000 less than the original per-person share.
New share = old share - 6000
120000/(x + 1) = (120000/x) - 6000
There's the equation. Now the ball is in your park. Solve the equation. If you still have questions, please SHOW YOUR WORK.
