Question

John divided his souvenir hat pins into two piles. The two piles had an equal number of pins. He gave his brother one-half of one-third of one pile. John had 66 pins left. How many pins did John originally have?

Answer 1

1/2 * 1/3 = 1/6
So if each pile had x pins to start with,
2x - 1/6 x = 66
find x, then finish it off