SOLUTION: Does this question have 1 variable or two? Three years ago tom was twice as old as jean. And in two years the sum of their ages will be 28 years. Find their present ages. Tha

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Question 1088283: Does this question have 1 variable or two?
Three years ago tom was twice as old as jean. And in two years the sum of their ages will be 28 years. Find their present ages.
Thanks, Tam
Found 3 solutions by josmiceli, MathTherapy, ikleyn:
Answer by josmiceli(19441)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
There are 2 variables and 2 equations
Therefore it is a solvable problem.
Let = Tom's present age
Let = Jean's present age
---------------------------------
(1)
(2)
---------------------------------
Use any valid method to find their
pesent ages

Answer by MathTherapy(10552)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Does this question have 1 variable or two?
Three years ago tom was twice as old as jean. And in two years the sum of their ages will be 28 years. Find their present ages.
Thanks, Tam

You can use either. I prefer to use ONLY 1.
In this case, I'd let Jean's age be J
Then, 3 years ago, Jean was J - 3
Therefore, Tom's age then, was: 2(J - 3), or 2J - 6, which makes Tom's current age: 2J - 6 + 3, or 2J - 3
We then get: J + 2 + 2J - 3 + 2 = 28
Solve for J, Jean's current age.
Then calculate: 2J - 3 for Tom's current age.

Answer by ikleyn(52802)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
There is a bunch of lessons on age word problems
    - Age problems and their solutions
    - A fresh formulation of a traditional age problem
    - Really intricate age word problem
    - Selected age word problems from the archive
in this site.

Read them and become an expert in solving age problems.

Also, you have this free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-I in this site
    - ALGEBRA-I - YOUR ONLINE TEXTBOOK.

The referred lessons are the part of this online textbook under the topic "Age word problems".

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When you read these lessons, you will get understanding that it is not the question to argue: one or two variables.

You can solve these problems using one variable (in the most simplest cases).

You can also solve them in two variables, and sometimes it works better in complex cases.

What you REALLY NEED is to learn both techniques and apply which suits better for the concrete problem.

So,     h a p p y   l e a r n i n g ! !