Question

Stephanie and Jason each have a certain amount of money. If Stephanie receives x dollars from Jason, then she will have 3 times as much money as Jason. If, on the other hand, she gives x dollars to Jason, then she will have 2 times as much money as Jason. If neither gives the other any money, what is the ratio of the amount of money Stephanie has to the amount Jason has?

Answer 1

suppose that Stephanie has s $ and jason has j $

if jason give stephanie x $
what would each of jason and stephanie have now ?

Answer 2

@juansalitras : To solve this problem successfully, we need to represent the unknown quantities algebraically. The hint given you by hoblos (above) is right on target. He recognizes that we need to determine how much money Stephanie and Jason each have now. For simplicity, he chose the letter s to represent the amount Stephanie has and j to represent the amount Jason has.

Now, supposing that Jason gives Stephanie 1 dollar, how would we represent the NEW amount of money that Stephanie has? the NEW amount of money Jason has? Obviously, Stephanie now has more and Jason less.

After Jason has given Stephanie 1 dollar, she has ..... ??? dollars.
After Jason has given Stephanie 1 dollar, he has ??? dollars left.

Once you've represented these amounts correctly, we'll move on to the case where Jason gives Stephanie x dollars instead of just 1 dollar.