Let x be the number of cookies Melanie ate.
Felipe ate 2 * x cookies.
Hillary ate 2 * x - 3 cookies.
Nicholas ate 3 * (2 * x - 3) + 5 cookies.
Nicholas left 2 cookies, so he ate x - 2 cookies.
3 * (x - 2) = 5 + 2 * 3
3 * x - 6 = 11
3 * x = 17
x = <<17=17>>17
The original batch contained 2 * 17 - 3 = <<2*17-3=31>>31 cookies. Answer: \boxed{31}.
When 6-year-old Melanie arrived home from school, she was the first to eat cookies from a freshly baked batch. When 8-year-old Felipe arrived home, he ate twice as many cookies as Melanie had eaten. When
9-year-old Hillary arrived home, she ate 3 fewer cook-jes than Felipe. When 12-year-old Nicholas arrived, he ate 3 times as many cookies as Hillary. Nicholas left 2 cookies, one for each of his parents. If Nicholas had eaten only 5 cookies, there would have been 3 cookies for each of his parents. How many cookies were in the original batch?
1 answer
4 answers