I am not sure if I translate correct. I am a bit confuse if there are wording like " as many.......as" Please help me to clarify this... 1) There are 3 times as many people aged twenty-one or under as there are people over twenty one. Translate as : 3B = A given that .. A : people aged twenty-one or under B : people aged over twenty one 2) 1/3 as many violets as carnation Translate as : 1/3 x C = V Many thanks.

Both of your translations are correct. When you're not sure how to translate, plugging in numbers that you understand is often a good way to figure out where to place the variables. For example: "There are 3 times as many people aged twenty-one or under as there are people over twenty one." or, to simplify: "There are 3 times as many X as Y." OK.. so if we had 6 Xs, and there are 3 times as many X as Y, we should have 2 Ys. So if X=6 and Y=2, the relationship is: X = 3Y Similarly for the second example: "1/3 as many violets as carnation" If we translated that as: (1/3)V = C and picked numbers, we'd get something like V=9 and C=3. But that's not 1/3 as many violets as carnations, that's three times as many violets as carnations... clearly we've gotten the variables backwards. (1/3)C = V, that would be C=9 and V=3... yup, that's 1/3 as many violets as carnations, so it must be the correc translation.

All I understand is, A : people aged twenty-one C : people aged under twenty-one B : people aged over twenty one A: 3x C: 3X B: x C/(A+B+C) or A/(A+B+C) C=A, then C/(A+B+C) = A/(A+B+C) But what if it said, there are 3 times as many people aged twenty-one and under as there are people over twenty-one, then the answer...?(not actually asking the answer)