You are in line at a ticket window.
Cool,then?
There are two more people ahead of you than there are behind you.
Let the people behind you be x number of people.
Then the number of people ahead of you are (x+2).
In the entire line, there are three times as many people as there are behind you.
so the number of people behind you is x
the entire line has three times x people = 3x
How many people are ahead of you in line?
Look at it this way:
you have (x+2) people ahead of you
then you are standing there
then you have x number of people behind you
**so all these people put together make the total number of people in the line.
total number of people=(x+2)+1+x=(2x+3)
but the question tell us that total number of people in the line is 3x
**so we get,
3x=2x+3
3x-2x=3
x=3
remember x stands for the people behind you in the line
so you have 3 people behind you in the line
the question says there are (x+2) people ahead of you
so there are (3+2)=5 people ahead of you in the line.
Hope this helps,
Prabhat