Problema Solution
obie and earl had 102 cards altogether. earl won 12 cards during a game. in the end, earl had 3 times as many cards as obie. how many cards did obie have in the beginning?
Answer provided by our tutors
Since we know that Earl had 3 times as many cards as Obie in the end and we know that there were 102 cards total, we calculate how many cards each person had at the end.
Let 'x' represent the number of cards Obie had at the end of the game, then 3x represents the number of cards Obie had at the end:
x + 3x = 102
x = 51/2
Since this is not an integer answer, the problem statement contains an error and can not be solved unless a card is allowed to be cut in half. The answer with this given information would be '12 + 51/2 = 37 1/2' but that makes no sense because of the half-card.