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Solving Age Problems: A Guide

This document provides examples of word problems involving ages. The first example involves a father and son whose combined age is 64. Letting C=son's age and B=father's age, the equation C + 3C = 64 is solved to find that the son is 16 and the father is 32. The second example involves two people whose combined age in 5 years will be 51. An equation is set up and solved to find their current ages. The third example involves a sister twice as old as her brother, and their combined age 3 years ago was 39. An equation is set up and solved to find their current ages.

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Carlson E. Aberin
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2K views4 pages

Solving Age Problems: A Guide

This document provides examples of word problems involving ages. The first example involves a father and son whose combined age is 64. Letting C=son's age and B=father's age, the equation C + 3C = 64 is solved to find that the son is 16 and the father is 32. The second example involves two people whose combined age in 5 years will be 51. An equation is set up and solved to find their current ages. The third example involves a sister twice as old as her brother, and their combined age 3 years ago was 39. An equation is set up and solved to find their current ages.

Uploaded by

Carlson E. Aberin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

How to Solve Age Problems Part 1

March 20, 2014 Civil Service Reviewer Math Word


Problems, Mathematics,Tutorials
After a series of tutorials on word problems involving numbers, we now
move to learning on how to solve word problems involving age. Age
problems are very similar to number problems, so if you have finished
reading The Number Word Problem Series, then it will be easier for you to
solve the following age problems.
Example 1
Benjie is thrice as old as his son Cedric. The sum of their ages is 64. How
old are both of them?
Scratch Work
This is one of those age problems that are very similar to number
problems. Let’s take a specific case. If Cedric is say years old, then Benji
is years old. This means that if Cedric is years old, then Benjie is .
If we add their ages, the result is .
Solution

Let be the age of Cedric and be the age of Benjie.

Cedric’s Age + Benjie’s Age = 64

Dividing both sides of the equation by gives us .

Therefore, Cedric is and Benjie is year sold.

Check

is thrice and . So, we are correct.

Example 2

Karen is years older than Nina. Five years from now, the sum of
their ages will be . How old are both of them?
Scratch Work

If Nina is years old, then Karen is years older, so her age will be .
Five years from now, both of their ages will increase by as shown on the
table below.

Therefore, 5 years from now, the sum of their ages will be equal to

. Now this sum is equal to .

Solution

Let be Nina’s age and be Karen’s age. In 5 years, Nina will be


years old and Karen will be years old.

Now,

Subtracting from both sides of the equation, we have

Dividing both sides by we have

This means that Nina is and Karen is .

Check

is 6 more than and five years from now, .


Therefore, we are correct.
Example 3

Sarah is twice as old as Jimmy. Three years ago, the sum of their ages is
39. How old are both of them now?

Scratch Work

If Jimmy is years old, then Sarah’s age is twice his age, so Sarah is
years old. Three years ago, both are younger by years, so both
their ages must be subtracted by .

Three years ago, the sum of their ages is . So, we add and
and equate it to

Solution

Let be Jimmy’s age and be Sarah’s age.

Three years ago, Jimmy was years old and Sarah was years
old.

Three years ago, the sum of Jimmy’s and Sarah’s age is

Adding to both sides of the equation results to

Dividing both sides by , we have


.

So, Jimmy is and Sarah is .

Check

Three years ago, Jimmy was years old and Sarah


was years old. The sum of their ages was .

[Link]

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