JGoode wrote:This question is taken from Kaplan Premier 2010-2011 on page 514 of the Word Problems chapter. Unfortunately, and rather annoyingly, as the question is used as an example to highlight how one should approach a word problem, the book does not provide neither answer choices or the actual answer. Thus, I don't know whether the answer should be algebraic or an actual whole number? The book does provide some kind of break down as to the equations used for each person, therefore I will post this below in the spoiler section - although I think there is a typo in Kaplan's working out which I would be grateful if someone could clarify.

"Bill received three fewer presents for his birthday than did John, who received half the number of presents as Betty and Sue averaged. If Sue received as many as John and Betty put together, and Bill and John together received one more than did Betty, then how many presents did Bill receive?"

[spoiler]Kaplan states:
"Bill received three fewer presents for his birthday than did John" therefore: Bill= J - 3
"John received half the number of presents as Betty and Sue averaged" therefore: J= (Betty + S)/2 (<<<Surely this is a typo as it only calculates the average of Betty and Sue, rather than 0.5 of their average?)
"Sue received as many as John and Betty put together" therefore: S= J + Betty
"Bill and John together received one more than did Betty" therefore: Bill + J= Betty + 1[/spoiler]

Any help would be great! Thanks.

JGoode wrote:This question is taken from Kaplan Premier 2010-2011 on page 514 of the Word Problems chapter. Unfortunately, and rather annoyingly, as the question is used as an example to highlight how one should approach a word problem, the book does not provide neither answer choices or the actual answer. Thus, I don't know whether the answer should be algebraic or an actual whole number? The book does provide some kind of break down as to the equations used for each person, therefore I will post this below in the spoiler section - although I think there is a typo in Kaplan's working out which I would be grateful if someone could clarify.

"Bill received three fewer presents for his birthday than did John, who received half the number of presents as Betty and Sue averaged. If Sue received as many as John and Betty put together, and Bill and John together received one more than did Betty, then how many presents did Bill receive?"

[spoiler]Kaplan states:
"Bill received three fewer presents for his birthday than did John" therefore: Bill= J - 3
"John received half the number of presents as Betty and Sue averaged" therefore: J= (Betty + S)/2 (<<<Surely this is a typo as it only calculates the average of Betty and Sue, rather than 0.5 of their average?)
"Sue received as many as John and Betty put together" therefore: S= J + Betty
"Bill and John together received one more than did Betty" therefore: Bill + J= Betty + 1[/spoiler]

Any help would be great! Thanks.

Stuart Kovinsky wrote: Thanks for spotting that! I'll pass it on to our development team.