Question

Molly has 6 grandchildren. She likes to be fair and buy gifts for all of them at the same time. She found jigsaw puzzles, each discounted by 50¢. Find the original cost of each puzzle if she spent a total of $27. Each puzzle cost $ ?
.

Answers

GPT-4o mini
Let the original cost of each puzzle be \( x \).

Since each puzzle is discounted by 50¢ (or $0.50), the discounted price that Molly pays for each puzzle is \( x - 0.50 \).

Molly has 6 grandchildren, so she buys 6 puzzles. The total cost for the puzzles Molly bought can be expressed as:

\[
6(x - 0.50)
\]

According to the problem, she spent a total of $27, so we can set up the equation:

\[
6(x - 0.50) = 27
\]

Now, we can simplify and solve for \( x \):

1. Distribute the 6:
\[
6x - 3 = 27
\]

2. Add 3 to both sides:
\[
6x = 30
\]

3. Divide by 6:
\[
x = 5
\]

Thus, the original cost of each puzzle is \( \boxed{5} \).