Problema Solution
Tessa and Nick, the boy she was babysitting, were playing basketball together. Her score was 18 points, and his score was 17 points. Tessa wanted to make the game more fair, so she called a time-out and modified the rules a bit. Tessa explained that, for the rest of the game, she would get 2 points per basket, and Nick would get 3 points per basket. Then they played a bit longer. After the time-out, they both made the same number of baskets and ended up with a tied score. How many baskets did each person make after the time out? How many points did each person have at the end?
Answer provided by our tutors
Let 'x' represent the number of baskets that each person made after the time out, x>0.
Since the score was tied at the end we can write:
18 + 2x = 17 + 3x
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click here to see the equation solved for x
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x = 1 baskets
Each person made 1 basket after the timeout.
18 + 2*1 = 20 = 17 + 3*1
Each person had 20 points at the end.