3 siblings collect rare coins. To determine the number of rare coins that Samantha has, take the number of rare coins kevin has, subtract4, and then multiply that difference by 2. How many rare coins does each sibling have if they have a totally of 49 coins?

Question

miracrown · Answer

The trick to this problem is all in the setup -- can you make algebraic equations to do that?

aum · Answer

Is it 3 siblings or 2 siblings?

anonymous · Answer

oh my bad! Excuse me. The real problem is... Three siblings collect rare coins. To determine the number of rare coins that Samantha has, take the number of rare coins kevin has, add 4, and then divide that sum by 2. To determine the number of rare coins Ben has, double the amount of rare coins Kevin has, subtract 4, and then multiply that difference by 2. How many rare coins does each sibling have if they have a total of 49 coins?

aum · Answer

"To determine the number of rare coins that Samantha has, take the number of rare coins kevin has, add 4, and then divide that sum by 2".
Assume Kevin has x coins.
Samantha has (x + 4) / 2

"To determine the number of rare coins Ben has, double the amount of rare coins Kevin has, subtract 4, and then multiply that difference by 2."
Ben has (2x - 4) * 2

"total of 49 coins"
x + (x + 4) / 2 + 2*(2x - 4) = 49

Simplify.  Solve for x.
Put the x value back and calculate the number of coins that Kevin, Samantha and Ben have.