Question

Five people each take the same number of candies from a jar. Then a group of seven people does the same: in so doing they empty the jar. If the jar originally contained 239 candies. Can you be sure how much candies each person took?

Answer 1

Answer:

Step-by-step explanation:

Let first group of people take x candies each

and second group of people take y candies each

5x + 7y will be total candies

5x +7y = 239 (needed to find positive solution of x,y)

now take x=38,  y =7

or x=31,   y= 12

hence lots of possibilities ,so we can not say exactly

Answer 2

Answer:

No! we can't, because there is no enough information (equation) to derive an exact value.

Step-by-step explanation:

From the question let x represent the number of candies each of the first five people took and y represent the number of candies each of the second seven people took.

Therefore, Given the total number of candies in the jar to be 239, we can express it mathematically as;

5x + 7y = 239 .....1

Since, there is no other information given and no other equation, then it is not possible to derive an exact value of the number of candies each of them picked.

Because, we have two variables(x and y) and one equation. To get an exact value for a simultaneous equation the number of variables must be equal to the number of equations given (e.g 2 variables and 2 equations....)

The possible values of the equation above are.

x = 38, y= 7

x = 45, y= 2

Etc.....