document.write( "Question 1187555: Tom had 4/5 as many stamps as Michael. After Michael gave away 3/7 of his stamps, Tom had 40 more stamps than Michael. How many stamps did Tom have? \n" ); document.write( "

Algebra.Com's Answer #818555 by ikleyn(52781) $\"\"$ $\"About$

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\n" ); document.write( "Tom had 4/5 as many stamps as Michael. After Michael gave away 3/7 of his stamps,
\n" ); document.write( "Tom had 40 more stamps than Michael. How many stamps did Tom have?
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document.write( "Let 5x be the number of stamps Michael had originally.\r\n" );
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document.write( "Then Tom had  4x stamps originally.\r\n" );
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document.write( "After Michael gave away 3/7 of his stamps, you have THIS equation\r\n" );
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document.write( "     = 4x - 40.\r\n" );
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document.write( "To solve, multiply both sides by 7.  You will get\r\n" );
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document.write( "    20x = 28x - 280\r\n" );
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document.write( "    280 = 28x - 20x\r\n" );
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document.write( "    280 =    8x\r\n" );
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document.write( "     x  = 280/8 = 35.\r\n" );
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document.write( "Tom had 4x = 4*35 = 140 stamps originally.    ANSWER\r\n" );
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "Notice that in my solution I introduced the unknown variable in a way to make my computations as simple as possible.\r
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