A company distributes free boxes of paperclips to all the workers in x offices. Each office has 8 more departments than the number of offices. The number of workers in each department is 4 less than the number of departments in each office. Each worker is given 3 boxes of paperclips.

Which expression shows the number of workers in each department?
a. x
b. x + 8
c. x + 4
d. 3x(x + 8)(x + 4)

Question

A company distributes free boxes of paperclips to all the workers in x offices. Each office has 8 more departments than the number of offices. The number of workers in each department is 4 less than the number of departments in each office. Each worker is given 3 boxes of paperclips.

Which expression shows the number of workers in each department?
 a. x
b. x + 8
c. x + 4 
d. 3x(x + 8)(x + 4)

oregonduck · Answer

After reading the problem carefully, I noted that "Each office has 8 more departments than the number of offices." The number of offices is a given: 'x' represents that. To add 8 to the number of offices would then represent the total number of departments that each office has. Therefore the answer should be x+8. BTW, to help yourself visualize this stuff a little better, substitute easy values like 10 into variables like 'x'. It will look a lot clearer then