SOLUTION: Mary lives in the middel of a large garden. One day ,she decides to cut as many flowers as her age in years. Then each day she cuts twice as many as the day before. on tjhe fifth d

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Question 568964: Mary lives in the middel of a large garden. One day ,she decides to cut as many flowers as her age in years. Then each day she cuts twice as many as the day before. on tjhe fifth day ffg the same rule she prepares a bonquet of lowers as many as her grans age in years . her gran is 60 years older than her. how old is mary
Answer by KMST(5328) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Let Mary's age be x.
She cuts x flowers the first day, 2x flowers the second day, 4xthe third day, 8x the fourth day and 16x the fifth day.
The numbers of flowers cut each day form a geometric sequence (or geometric progression), but we do not care about that until Algebra 2 (in the USA).
What's important is that on the fifth day she cut 16x flowers and that number is the same as her grandmother's age plus Mary's age: 60%2Bx. So
16x=60%2Bx --> 16x-x=60%2Bx-x --> 15x=60 --> 15x%2F15=60%2F15 --> highlight%28x=4%29