Question

Arlene read 30 pages. That is 10 pages more than half of the pages Taylor read. How many pages did Taylor read? Write an equation in the form px + q = r to represent this problem. (2 points)

Answer 1

To write an equation representing the problem, let's use x as the number of pages Taylor read.

According to the problem, Arlene read 30 pages, which is 10 pages more than half of the pages Taylor read. So, half of the pages Taylor read would be x/2. Since Arlene read 10 more than this half, we add 10 to x/2, which gives us (x/2) + 10.

Now, we know that this must equal the number of pages Arlene read, which is 30. Therefore, we can write the equation as:

(x/2) + 10 = 30

To turn this into the form px + q = r, which essentially means making x have a whole number coefficient, we can multiply both sides by 2 to eliminate the fraction:

2((x/2) + 10) = 2(30)

Now when we distribute the 2 on the left side of the equation, we get:

2(x/2) + 2(10) = 60

This simplifies to:

x + 20 = 60

Here is your equation in the form px + q = r:

x + 20 = 60

If you want to solve for x:

x = 60 - 20
x = 40

Thus, Taylor read 40 pages.