Question

At the beginning of the bake sale, mary set aside 2 pies for herself. Karen then bought half of the remaining pies for her birthday party, and 10 more pies were sold during the sale. When the sale was over, there were 19 pies remaining. How many pies were there before the bake sale started?

Answer 1

There were 60 pies before the bake sale started.

Explanation

Suppose, there were $x$ number of pies before the bake sale started.

As Mary set aside 2 pies for herself at the beginning of the bake sale, so the remaining number of pies $=x-2$

Karen then bought half of the remaining pies for her birthday party. That means, the remaining number of pies after Karen bought will be: $\frac{x-2}{2}$

10 more pies were sold during the sale and there were 19 pies remaining when the sale was over. So, the equation will be......

$\frac{x-2}{2}-10=19\\ \\ \frac{x-2}{2}=29\\ \\ x-2= 2*29=58\\ \\ x= 58+2=60$

So, there were 60 pies before the bake sale started.