Michael and Minnie are gathering coats for a coat-drive at their school. Minnie gathers 3 times as many coats as Michael and together they have 52 coats. How many coats did Michael contribute?

Question

ddcamp · Answer

Let A be the number of coats Michael brought, and B be the number that Minnie brought.

The total that they brought together would be A+B = 52
Since Minnie brought three times as many coats as Michael, we know that B=3A

Can you solve the system for A?

anonymous · Answer

I don't know it :/

anonymous · Answer

wait i got it

ddcamp · Answer

We have two equations, and we know that A and B are the same in both equations:
A + B = 52
B = 3A

Since the B in the first equation is the same as the B in the second equation, we can substitute one value of B for the other. Since B=3A, we can change the first equation to say:
A + B = 52
A + (3A) = 52

Can you solve that for A?