SOLUTION: This coming Halloween, Tom plans to scare twice as many people as Sam, and Sam plans to scare three times as many people as Roz. In all, they plan to scare at most 2005 people. If

Question 322928: This coming Halloween, Tom plans to scare twice as many people as Sam, and Sam plans to scare three times as many people as Roz. In all, they plan to scare at most 2005 people. If no one is scared more than once, at most how many people does Sam plan to scare?

Answer by jessica43(140) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
To solve this problem, you need to make three different equations with the given information.
First, you know that Tom plans to scare twice as many people as Sam:
t = 2s (t= number of people Tom scares, s= number of people Sam scares)
Second, you know that Sam plans to scare three times as many people as Roz:
s = 3r (r= number of people Roz scares)
Third, you know that they plan to scare at most 2005 people total:
t + s + r = 2005
Now you need to combine all three equations. To do this, you need to have only one variable. Since s is the only variable in all three equations, that is what we want to solve for. So we need to rewrite the second equation in terms of s:
s = 3r is the same as r = s/3
Now plug in the first equation and the rewritten second equation into the third equation and solve for s:
t+s+r=2005
(2s) + s + (s/3) = 2005
3s + (1/3)s = 2005
(9/3)s + (1/3)s = 2005
(10/3)s = 2005
s= 601.5
So at most, Sam plans to scare 601 people (can't have half a person and can't round up or else they would scare more than 2005 in total).
RELATED QUESTIONS
Ok. I need to know how to set this word problem up into an equation. "Roger has three... (answered by scott8148)

sam and bill can paint a fence in one hour. Sam can paint three times as fast as Bill in... (answered by josmiceli)

sam is 18 and bill is 24. how many years ago was bill three times as old as... (answered by Alan3354,josgarithmetic,greenestamps)

Frankenstein can scare all the town people in 12 hours. The wolf man can scare them all... (answered by josgarithmetic)

hector has 7/8 of a pound of leftover Halloween candy. He plans on giving it away to his... (answered by addingup)

750 people at a rugby match. twice as many men as women. three times as much women as... (answered by greenestamps)

Sam is 5 years old. His older brother, Tom, is three times as old as Sam. When Sam is 20, (answered by lenny460)

If Juan has 4 more than twice the amount of nickels as sam and carlos has 2 less than 3... (answered by josmiceli,MathTherapy)

The sum of Sam and Mary's age is 60. Twelve years ago, Sam was three times as old as... (answered by ankor@dixie-net.com,MathTherapy)