Question 1143846
<br>
I'll help you get started; you should have the experience of doing the work to get the answer yourself.<br>
In the beginning, Josh has j marbles and May has m marbles:
Josh = j;
May = m<br>
Then Josh gives 1/4 of his marbles to May:
Josh = j-(1/4)j = (3/4)j;
May = m+(1/4)j<br>
At this point, May has 3 times as many marbles as Josh:
(1) {{{m+(1/4)j = 3((3/4)j)}}}<br>
Next May gives 12 marbles to Josh:
Josh = (3/4)j+12;
May = m+(1/4)j-12<br>
Now the two have the same number of marbles:
(2) {{{(3/4)j+12 = m+(1/4)j-12}}}<br>
There you have 2 equations in j and m; use whatever method you like for solving pairs of equations to solve the problem.<br>
While there are many ways to do that, the path I followed was to solve equation (1) for m and substitute that value in (2).