Rita has stickers, she gave half of them to her friend but her brother gave her 8. She ends up with 12 stickers. What arithmetic operations are used to SOLVE this?

1 answer

To solve the problem, we can set up an equation based on the operations described in the scenario. Let's denote the number of stickers Rita initially had as \( x \).

The steps can be broken down as follows:

  1. Giving Half Away: When Rita gives half of her stickers to her friend, she has \( \frac{x}{2} \) stickers left.

  2. Receiving from Brother: After that, her brother gives her 8 stickers, so now she has: \[ \frac{x}{2} + 8 \]

  3. Ending Up with 12 Stickers: According to the problem, she ends up with 12 stickers. We can set up the equation: \[ \frac{x}{2} + 8 = 12 \]

Now, to solve for \( x \), we can use the following arithmetic operations:

  1. Subtraction: First, subtract 8 from both sides: \[ \frac{x}{2} = 12 - 8 \] \[ \frac{x}{2} = 4 \]

  2. Multiplication: Next, multiply both sides by 2 to solve for \( x \): \[ x = 4 \times 2 \] \[ x = 8 \]

Thus, the arithmetic operations used are subtraction and multiplication to find that Rita originally had 8 stickers.