SOLUTION: Gabor is w years old. his mother is 4 times older than him. his father is three years older than his mother. write an expression to represent the age of Gabor's mother as a functio

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Question 1206699: Gabor is w years old. his mother is 4 times older than him. his father is three years older than his mother. write an expression to represent the age of Gabor's mother as a function of w
Found 6 solutions by MathLover1, ikleyn, josgarithmetic, greenestamps, math_tutor2020, Edwin McCravy:
Answer by MathLover1(20850)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Gabor's
Answer by ikleyn(52810)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

Wording in your text is INCORRECT.

A correct wording is THIS (my editing is underlined) 

    Gabor is w years old. His mother is 4 times as old as Gabor. 
    His father is three years older than his mother. 
    Write an expression to represent the age of Gabor's mother as a function of w

Since you compose/create the problem on your own (as I see it from your text),
learn on HOW TO do it in a right way,.


Otherwise, your writing is ambiguous in English, which is    for Math problems.


If you do not make it in a canonic way, your writing will create
scandals much greater than this problem really costs/deserves.



Answer by josgarithmetic(39620)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
To look at the description for each person
GABOR           w

MOTHER          w+4w=5w

FATHER          5w+3

The question asks specifically for Mother's age, 5w.
Answer by greenestamps(13200)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!


ANSWER (the grammatically correct one): 5w

The phrase "... (some number) times OLDER THAN..." should NEVER be used in the statement of a math problem, because its grammatically correct meaning is NOT what nearly everyone thinks. The statement of a math problem cannot be such that the given information can be interpreted incorrectly.

If Gabor's age is w and his mother is 4 TIMES AS OLD AS Gabor, then her age is 4 times w, or 4w.

But "4 times OLDER THAN Gabor" means Gabor's age, PLUS 4 MORE TIMES HIS AGE: w, plus 4w more; w+4w = 5w.

Unfortunately, in sloppy everyday usage, 4 times OLDER THAN is nearly always meant to be 4 times AS OLD AS.
Answer by math_tutor2020(3817)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Let's look at an example.

Let's say Gabor is 10 years old.
4 times that would be 4*10 = 40.
If his mother is 40 years older than him, then she would be 10+40 = 50.
Note 50/10 = 5 is the multiplier, which is where the other tutors are getting the 5w from.

If you changed "4 times older than" to "4 times as old as", then Gabor being 10 leads to the mother being 4*10 = 40.
In general if the mother was 4 times as old as her son, then her age would be 4w.

The phrasing is slightly different. I've seen some textbooks use the two styles interchangeably. Unfortunately it's a bit ambiguous.
This is why it's a good idea to ask your teacher for further clarification.


Further Reading
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/the-man-is-five-times-older-than-his-grandson.2879727/
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/times-older-than-times-as-old-as.3556657/
https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-is-3-times-older-than-b-166610.html
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/268171/a-is-8-times-older-to-b
Answer by Edwin McCravy(20060)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Gabor is w years old. his mother is 4 times older than him.
m = 4w
write an expression to represent the age of Gabor's mother as a function of w
That's it. m = 4w. The information about the father is irrelevant.

Edwin
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