SOLUTION: James is 4 years older than paul. In two years their ages will total 50 how old is james now ?

Question 1056556: James is 4 years older than paul. In two years their ages will total 50 how old is james now ?
Answer by ikleyn(52800) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
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James is 4 years older than Paul. In two years their ages will total 50 how old is James now ?
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J = P +4                (1)     ("James is 4 years older than paul.")
(J+2) + (P + 2) = 50.   (2)     ("In two years their ages will total 50")


Substitute (1) into (2). You will get

((P+4)+2)) + (P+2) = 50,

2P + 8 = 50,

2P = 50 - 8 = 42,

P =  = 21.

Answer. Paul is 21. James is 25.

There is a bunch of lessons on age word problems
    - Age problems and their solutions
    - A fresh formulation of a traditional age problem
    - Really intricate age word problem
    - Selected age word problems from the archive
in this site.

Read them and become an expert in solving age problems.

Also, you have this free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-I in this site
    - ALGEBRA-I - YOUR ONLINE TEXTBOOK.

The referred lessons are the part of this online textbook under the topic "Age word problems".

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