Question

Vera and Roni collect stamps. Roni has eight less than three times as many stamps as Vera has. Together, the two girls have exactly 300 stamps. How many does Vera have?

Answer 1

You're better off posting in the pi mathematics forum, but here goes...

The general strategy is to choose symbols for unknowns, write the facts you are given as equations involving these unknowns, then solve the equations.

Start by choosing names or symbols for the things you don't know. In this case we could use the letter v to represent the number of stamps that Vera has, and r to represent the number of stamps that Roni has.

You then just need to try to write the facts you are given as equations using these symbols.
For example, we know that Vera and Roni together have 300 stamps, so we can write:\[v+r=300\]
The second equation is more confusing to extract because of the wording, but you can see that it is basically saying how many stamps Roni has in terms of the number Vera has, so it will be of the form r = something involving v. Untangling the syntax we get:
\[r = 3v - 8\]
You can then solve as usual by, for example, substituting this expression for r in the first equation and solving for v.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

about ronnie 77 and vera 223

Answer 3

I get those numbers but it's the other way round. ;)

Answer 4

yes Richie you are right sorry :)

Answer 5

I had to check!