Question 31262This question is from textbook College Algebra 
:  A group of friends decides to buy a vacation home for $120,000, sharing the cost equally. If they could find one more person to join them, each person's contribution would drop by $6,000. How many people are in the group?
 
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This question is from textbook College Algebra 
 Answer by mukhopadhyay(490)      (Show Source): 
You can  put this solution on YOUR website! Assume that the group has x number of people 
Cost per head is 120,000/x 
Increasing the persons by one more will make the number of persons as (x+1) 
Cost per head will then be 120000/(x+1) 
As per the question, 120000/(x+1) = 120000/x - 6000 
=>(120000/x)-[120000/(x+1)]=6000 
=>120000[1/x - 1/(x+1)]=6000 
=>20[1/x - 1/(x+1)] = 1 
=>20[(x+1-x)/x(x+1)]=1 
=>20[1/x(x+1)]=1 
=>x(x+1)=20 
=>x^2+x-20=0 
=>(x+5)(x-4)=0 
=>x=-5 or x=4
 
Number of persons cannot be negative.  So, total number of people in the group is 4. 
 
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