Question

2) The ages of Sylvana’s two daughters are consecutive even integers. Find their ages if the sum of their ages is 38. a. Create an equation to represent the situation. ) b. Solve for the ages of the daughters

Answer 1

As for this problem, it is needed to come up with an equation to represent the situation.

In this case, the simplest one would be this:

x + y = 38

Let us establish that we need to solve for x first to get the y (no matter which you solve first, you get the second one by using the first one)
To do this, we substitute y with this equation:

x + 2 = y

Then, substitute y with the equation. It should look like this:

x + (x + 2) = 38

Now all you have to do is solve.

2x = 36
----------
     2

x = 18

Then get they value of y

x + 2 = y
18 +2 = y
20 = y

So the answer for the ages of the daughters would be 18 and 20.

NOTE:
you can also use the equation

x - 2 = y     instead of       x + 2 = y

This will give you a value of 20 for x instead of 18 and 18 for y instead of 20. Either way, 18 and 20 will be the answer.