SOLUTION: Jan is one year younger than her brother Bill and one year older than her sister Sue. The sum of the three children's age is 57. How old is each child?

Question 328122: Jan is one year younger than her brother Bill and one year older than her sister Sue. The sum of the three children's age is 57. How old is each child?
Answer by meay7c(10) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Here we are trying to calculate the age of Jan, Bill , and Sue.
Remember Jan is one year younger than Bill, which makes him 1 year older than Jan.
Jan is one year older than Sue, which makes Sue one year younger than Jan.
Let's assign an expression to each one of their ages:
Let x = Jan's age
Let x + 1 = Bill's age
Let x - 1 = Sue's age
The sum of everyone's age is 57. Now lets create our equation:
x + (x + 1) + (x - 1) = 57
Now lets simplify:
x + x + x + 1 - 1 = 57
Our ones cancel so we are left with:
3x = 57
Divide both sides by 3 and we are left with:
x = 19

So:
Jan's age is 19
Bill's age is 20 (19 + 1)
Sue's age 18 (19 - 1)
Check our solutions: 19 + 20 + 18 = 57 Yes!!!
Good Luck:-)

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