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| Question 637307:  Hi,
 Am trying to help my autistic boy and unfortunately am not very good with math. He has a Age Word Problem as below:
 
 Bill and Ben are brothers the sum of their ages is equal to 4 times Bob's age who is half as old as Bridget. The average age of the 4 children is 8. Write this as an equation, then solve it.
 I tried to work out the equations and came out with something as below:
 A=Bill's age
 B=Ben's age
 C=Bob's age
 D=Bridget's age
 A + B = 4C
 D = 2C
 A + B + C + D = 32
 When I tried to work out the values, am not coming up with a whole number as the answer. Also am getting an invalid age value for A and B as well. What am I doing wrong?
 Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
 
 Answer by Alan3354(69443)
      (Show Source): 
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Bill and Ben are brothers the sum of their ages is equal to 4 times Bob's age who is half as old as Bridget. The average age of the 4 children is 8. Write this as an equation, then solve it. I tried to work out the equations and came out with something as below:
 A=Bill's age
 B=Ben's age
 C=Bob's age
 D=Bridget's age
 A + B = 4C
 D = 2C
 A + B + C + D = 32
 When I tried to work out the values, am not coming up with a whole number as the answer. Also am getting an invalid age value for A and B as well. What am I doing wrong?
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 A + B + C + D = 32
 4C + C + 2C = 32
 C = 32/7
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 D = 64/7
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 A + B = 128/7
 A & B cannot be determined with the data given, only the sum.
 -----------------
 You would expect integer solutions, but they're not.
 Maybe a typo somewhere.
 
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