Question

Identify the equation the best describes of following information Josie has three times as many pencils as Marcy Marcy has 12 pencils A j/3 = 12 B j = 12/3 C 3j = 12 D 3/j = 12

Answer 1

To find the equation that best describes the situation given the information that "Josie has three times as many pencils as Marcy" and "Marcy has 12 pencils," we can set up the equation as follows:

Let \( j \) be the number of pencils Josie has. According to the problem, Josie's pencils can be expressed as:

\[ j = 3 \times \text{(number of pencils Marcy has)} \]

Since Marcy has 12 pencils, we can substitute that value into the equation:

\[ j = 3 \times 12 \]

Now, let's calculate that:
\[ j = 36 \]

This means Josie has 36 pencils. The equation in terms of \( j \) is:

\[ j = 3 \cdot 12 \]

Next, let's fit this into the given options:

A. \( j/3 = 12 \) (This means \( j = 36 \) after multiplying by 3, which is consistent.)

B. \( j = 12/3 \) (This would mean \( j = 4 \), which is incorrect.)

C. \( 3j = 12 \) (This would mean \( j = 4 \) after dividing by 3, which is also incorrect.)

D. \( 3/j = 12 \) (This does not fit our situation.)

Out of the options given, A \( j/3 = 12 \) is the correct choice because it correctly leads to Josie having three times Marcy's amount of pencils.