A salesperson bought a caase of pens.On Monday, he sold 1/2 of the pens.On Tuesady, he sold 30 more.On Wednesday, he sold 1/3 of the pens that were left.On Thursday, he sold the remaining 40 pens.How many pens were originally in the case,

2 answers

96
96 is a nice number, but it is not the answer to your problem.

Let x = total number of pens

.5x = Monday sales, which means that .5x remain.
30 = Tuesday sales
1/3(.5x-30) = Wednesday sales
40 remained on Thursday

.5x - 30 - 1/3 (.5x -30) = 40

Solve for x.

I hope this helps. Thanks for asking.