SOLUTION: Steps to solve John had 8 more shrimp than Bob.all together they had 32 shrimp. How many shrimp did each boy have?

Then we read this:

To express how many shrimp John had, we must
take the N shrimp that Bob has and add 8 to it.

To take N and add 8 to it, we write "N" and then
write "+8" after it.  Like this:

               N+8

So John had N+8 shrimp.

Then we read this:

So we must add together the N shrimp Bob had and the N+8
shrimp John had by putting a + between N and N+8, like this:

N + N+8

and set that equal to 32:

N + N+8 = 32

Add the two N's together and get 2N

2N+8 = 32

Subtract 8 from both sides:

2N+8 = 32
  -8   -8
---------
2N   = 24

Divide both sides by 2:



N = 12

That's how many shrimp Bob had.

so John had 12+8 or 20 shrimp.

Answer: Bob had 12 shrimp and John had 20 shrimp.

Edwin