SOLUTION: Mick’s father was 28 years old when Mick was born. If his father is now 3 times as old as Mick is, how old are they both now?

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Question 1164331: Mick’s father was 28 years old when Mick was born. If his father is now 3 times as old as Mick is, how old are they both now?
Found 3 solutions by josgarithmetic, ikleyn, greenestamps:
Answer by josgarithmetic(39620)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Father is years of age. This makes Mick 56.

Age difference is 28 years.
m for Mick
3m for father
Answer by ikleyn(52803)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
Mick’s father was 28 years old when Mick was born. If his father is now 3 times as old as Mick is, how old are they both now?
~~~~~~~~~~~~


            The  "solution"  by @josgarithmetic is  TOTALLY  WRONG  and his answer  "Mick is 56"  is  ABSOLUTELY  INCORRECT.

            I came to bring the correct solution. 


The problem says that Mick's father is 28 years older than Mick.

So, if Mick' age now is x years, then the father's age is (x+28) years.


Next, from the condition, you have THIS equation

    x + 28 = 3x.     ("his father is now 3 times as old as Mick is")


From this equation

    28 = 3x - x

    28 = 2x

     x =  = 14.


ANSWER.  Mick is 14 years old.  His father is 3*14 = 42 years old.


CHECK.  Father, whose age is 42 years, is 28 years older than Mick:  42 - 28 = 14.   ! Correct !

----------------

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 problems
    - Selected age word problems from the archive
    - Age problems for mental solution
    - Miscellaneous age problems
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".


Save the link to this online textbook together with its description

Free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-I
https://www.algebra.com/algebra/homework/quadratic/lessons/ALGEBRA-I-YOUR-ONLINE-TEXTBOOK.lesson

to your archive and use it when it is needed.



Answer by greenestamps(13200)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!


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For tutor @ikleyn...

You show 3 times that the father is 52 instead of 42 -- I assume that was a typo

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For the student....

If your mental math is good, you can use the same path to the answer as shown by tutor @ikleyn without the formal algebra.

(1) When the father is 3 times as old as Mick, the difference in their ages will be twice Mick's age (the difference between 3 times a number and the number itself is 2 times the number).
(2) The difference between their ages is 28 years; since the difference in their ages is twice Mick's age, Mick's age is 28/2 = 14.
(3) And that makes his father's age 14*3 = 42 (or 14+28 = 42).
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