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Age word problem: Imran

Sal solves the following age word problem: In 40 years, Imran will be 11 times as old as he is right now. How old is he right now? Created by Sal Khan.

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  • female robot grace style avatar for user kittychan
    please someone help me....I am homeschooled and i don't know how to solve these questions....so please can someone tell me how to solve these questions..I will be really grantfull to you even if you just helped me out in only one question!!..thanks

    1.Mary's age is 2/3 that of Peter's.Two years ago Mary's age was 1/2 of what Peter's age will be in 5 years' time.How old is Peter now?

    2.A half of what John's age was 4 years ago is equal to one third of what it will be in 5 years' time.How old is John now?>>>thanks<<<
    (23 votes)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user DeWain Molter
      Define m as Mary's age, p as Peter's age, convert the problem into algebra notation.

      1.Mary's age (m) is(=) 2/3 that of Peter's((2/3)*p).Two years ago Mary's age(m-2) was(=) 1/2 of what Peter's age will be in 5 years' time[(1/2)*(p+5)].How old is Peter now?

      Get two equations...
      m=(2/3)*p, and
      (m-2)=(1/2)*(p+5), multiply 2nd eqn by 2 to eliminate fraction, so system is

      m = (2/3) p
      2m - 4 = p + 5, substitute value of m from 1st eqn into 2nd eqn, get

      2((2/3)p) - 4 = p + 5, solve for p... simplify multiplication first

      (4/3)p - 4 = p + 5, add 4 to both sides, get

      (4/3)p = p + 9, subtract p from both sides, get
      (1/3)p = 9, multiply both sides by 3 to eliminate fraction, get
      p=27, Peter is 27 years old.

      2.A half of what John's age was 4 years ago[(1/2)(j-4)] is(=) equal to one third of what it will be in 5 years' time[(1/3)(j+5)].How old is John now?

      (1/2)(j-4) = (1/3)(j+5), I would multiply both sides by 6 to eliminate all the fractions... get
      3(j-4) = 2(j+5), work through distributive property
      3j - 12 = 2j + 10, add 12 to both sides
      3j = 2j + 22, subtract 2j from both sides
      j = 22
      (43 votes)
  • leaf grey style avatar for user The Painter
    I am having a lot of trouble solving these types of problems on the "Age word problem" questions. Could someone help me with this?
    Here's an example:
    Kevin is 3 years older than Daniel. Two years ago, Kevin was 4 times as old as Daniel.
    How old is Daniel now?
    (13 votes)
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    • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Timber Lin
      let k=kevins age now
      let d=daniels age now
      k=d+3, kevin is 3 yrs older than daniel now.
      2 years ago, kevin was k-2 years old, daniel was d-2 years old, and kevin was 4 times daniels age:
      (k-2)=4(d-2), which becomes k-2=4d-8 then k=4d-6. we also know k=d+3 since kevin is 3 years older than daniel now. if you substitute for k, then 4d-6=k=d+3.
      4d-6=d+3, 3d=9, d=3.
      daniel is 3 years old now.
      hope this helps
      (23 votes)
  • piceratops seed style avatar for user Nocato Kasler
    When viewing these videos in the 8th grade, "Systems of equations" playlist, the elimination method of solving a system of equations has not been introduced.

    This is jarring. It would be nice if the elimination method was introduced earlier, or these videos just used the substitution method.
    (12 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Adith Williams-white
    How do i solve this problem, please help
    The sum of the ages of Jennie and Matt is 40. Jennie is 5 less than twice Matt's age. How old is Matt?
    (6 votes)
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    • male robot hal style avatar for user THEILLUMINATI666 2.0
      First, you would want to read it over and think of a way to convert this into an equation. so let's say Jennie's age is j and matt's age is m. Jennie's age is 5 less than twice matt's age so jenny's age(j)=2m-5. Jenny's and matt's ages add up to 40 so we know that jenny's age is
      2m-5 and matt's age is m so 2m-5+m=40.
      2m+m-5=40 lets get rid of the 5 so add 5 to both sides
      2m+m=45
      3m=45 (because 2m+m = 2m+1m=3m)
      what times 3 is 45? divide both sides to find out
      m=15 Matt is 15 years old. Jenny is 25.
      (4 votes)
  • starky ultimate style avatar for user AR12
    Kevin is 3years older than Daniel. Two years ago, Kevin was 4times as old as Daniel.

    How old is Kevin now?
    (4 votes)
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  • starky seedling style avatar for user Chamely Uddin
    isn't Imran his son?
    (6 votes)
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  • aqualine sapling style avatar for user 461388
    Still dont get it.
    (6 votes)
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    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user elijah
      Hi! Imran is currently x years old. (X since we don't know). Then, we see he will be 11 times as old in 40 years. then, we can form an equation such as x + 40 =11x. Now, the next step would be to figure out x. If you can't figure it out, you can subtract x from the left and then from the right. So that would be X - x + 40 = 11x - x. That would bring you to 40 = 10x. 40 divided by 10 is 4. Therefore, X is 4 and he is currently 4 years old. Good luck and hope this helps!
      (0 votes)
  • starky sapling style avatar for user thatrandomchild
    Is anyone else here who's as smart as me for solving this question the minute they saw it?? And also saying that the answer is 4??
    (2 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Rooster Wilce
    I hate setting up equations myself. I much prefer solving them.
    (5 votes)
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  • leafers ultimate style avatar for user Burger
    I just started watching the video, and 44 is the only thing divisible by 11 (that is a reasonable number) in this scenario, so imran must be 4 at the time right?
    (3 votes)
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    • leafers ultimate style avatar for user Burger
      My bad, there are an infinite amount of solutions to this equation, just thought about it. What if, instead of being 4, imran was 15? it would still make a lot of sense. Same thing if he was 26? it still is the same answer, and it makes sense, so i was wrong
      (3 votes)

Video transcript

We're told that in 40 years, Imran will be 11 times as old as he is right now. And then we're asked, how old is he right now? And so I encourage you to try this on your own. Well, let's see if we can set this up as an equation. So let's figure out what our unknown is first. Well, our unknown is how old he is right now. I'm just arbitrarily using x. We always like to use x. But I could've really set it to be anything. But let's say x is equal to how old he is right now. How old-- not how hold. How old he is now. Now, what do we know about how old he will be in 40 years? Well, he's going to be how old he is now plus 40. So let me write that down. So in 40 years Imran is going to be x plus 40, plus this 40 right over here. But they give us another piece of information. This by itself isn't enough to figure out how old he is right now. But they tell us in 40 years, Imran will be 11 times as old as he is right now. So that's saying that this quantity right over here, x plus 40, is going to be 11 times x. In 40 years, he's going to be 11 times as old as he is right now. So this is going to be times 11. You take x, multiply it times 11, you're going to get how old he's going to be in 40 years. So let's write that down as an equation. You take x, multiply it by 11, so 11 times as old as he is right now is how old he is going to be in 40 years. And we have set up a nice little, tidy linear equation now. So we just have to solve for x. So let's get all the x's on the left-hand side. We have more x's here than on the right-hand side. So we avoid negative numbers, let's stick all the x's here. So if I want to get rid of this x on the right hand side, I'd want to subtract an x. But obviously, I can't just do it to the right. Otherwise, the equality won't be true anymore. I need to do it on the left as well. And so I am left with-- if I have 11 of something and I take away 1 of them, I'm left with 10 of that something. So I'm left with 10 times x is equal to-- well, these x's, x minus x is just 0. That was the whole point. It's going to be equal to 40. And you could do this in your head at this point, but let's just solve it formally. So if we want a 1 coefficient here, we'd want to divide by 10, but we've got to do that to both sides. And so we are left with-- and we could have our drum roll now. We are left with x is equal to 4 years old. x is equal to 4. So our answer to the question, how old is Imran right now? He is 4 years old. And let's verify this. If he's 4 years old right now, in 40 years he's going to be 44 years old. And 44 years old is indeed 11 times older than 4 years old. This is a factor of 11 years, so it all worked out.