document.write( "Question 985982: Jasmine and her friends eat half a bag of lollies on her birthday. The next day they eat three quarters of the number they ate the day before. Then there are 8 lollies left. How many were in the bag to begin with? \n" ); document.write( "
Algebra.Com's Answer #606751 by Edwin McCravy(20066)\"\" \"About 
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Jasmine and her friends eat half a bag of lollies on her birthday. The next day
\n" ); document.write( "they eat three quarters of the number they ate the day before. Then there are 8
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document.write( "There are two ways to do it, with and without algebra. I'll do it both ways:\r\n" );
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document.write( "FIRST WAY (WITHOUT ALGEBRA):\r\n" );
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document.write( "Start at the end and go backwards.\r\n" );
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document.write( "There were 8 lollies left. \r\n" );
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document.write( "Therefore since 8 were left after taking three quarters, the 8 must have been\r\n" );
document.write( "the one quarter that was left, so there were 4 times 8 or 32 lollies before.\r\n" );
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document.write( "Then before that they ate half a bag, so those 32 must have been half of what\r\n" );
document.write( "they started with, so they started with 64 lollies.\r\n" );
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document.write( "SECOND WAY (WITH ALGEBRA)\r\n" );
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document.write( "There were N lollies to begin with \r\n" );
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\n" ); document.write( "Jasmine and her friends eat half a bag of lollies on her birthday.
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document.write( "So there was half a bag or \"expr%281%2F2%29N\" left\r\n" );
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\n" ); document.write( "The next day they eat three quarters of the number they ate the day before.
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document.write( "Since they ate \"expr%281%2F2%29N\" the day before, they ate \"expr%283%2F4%29%2Aexpr%281%2F2%29N\", so we subtract that from what they had left.\r\n" );
document.write( "So after that, the had this many left:\r\n" );
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document.write( "\"expr%281%2F2%29N\"\"%22%22-%22%22\"\"expr%283%2F4%29%2Aexpr%281%2F2%29N\"  \r\n" );
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document.write( "Multiplying those two fractions\r\n" );
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document.write( "\"expr%281%2F2%29N-expr%283%2F8%29N\" \r\n" );
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\n" ); document.write( "Then there are 8 lollies left.
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document.write( "So we set that equal to 8\r\n" );
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document.write( "\"expr%281%2F2%29N-expr%283%2F8%29N\"\"%22%22=%22%22\"\"8\"\r\n" );
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document.write( "Multiply through by LCD = 8\r\n" );
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document.write( "\"4N-3N=64\"\r\n" );
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document.write( "\"N=64\"\r\n" );
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document.write( "Same answer as when we didn't use algebra and worked backwards.\r\n" );
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document.write( "Edwin
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