Question

Jose has a comic book collection that he keeps among 5 shelves with an equal number on each shelf.

Answer 1

If Jose has an equal number of comic books on each of the 5 shelves, he has a total of 5 times the number of comic books on each shelf. Let's call the number of comic books on each shelf "x".
So, the total number of comic books in Jose's collection is 5x.