Question

a firefighter is standing on the middle rung of a ladder.she moved up 9 rungs.the smoke got worse.so she moved back down 13 rungs when the smoke cleared she wentup 19 rungs to the top how many rungs does the ladder have

Answer 1

Let x be the number of rungs. So she starts at x/2
then she goes to
x/2 + 9
then to
x/2 + 9 - 13
then to
x/2 + 9 - 13 + 19 --- (**)
and now she's at the top.

What must this expression (**) be equal to?