Question

Billy has three times as many llamas as lambs.

Answer 1

Answer:

Billy: Has 4 lots of animals

Milly: Has 3 lots of animals

17 animals in total means that Billy must have 4 lots of 2 (8 animals) and Milly must have 3 lots of 3 (9 animals) So Billy has 6 llamas and Milly has 3, giving 9 llamas in total

Answer 2

Answer:

There are 9 llamas.

Step-by-step explanation:

For Billy, we have to find a number that is divisible by four, because he has one group of lambs, and 3 times as many llamas, which gives us 4 groups altogether. The number must be below 10 in order to not go above 17 when Milly's number of animals are included, but above 4 itself in order to reach the target of 17 in the first place.

As you can guess, the only number that fits all the criteria is 8. It's divisible by 4 and below 10, but above 4 itself.

If Billy has three times as many llamas as lambs, then he must have 2 lambs, and 6 llamas, as 2 × 3 = 6.

If we know that Billy has 8 animals, then we also know that Milly must have 9 animals, as 17 - 8 = 9.

We also know that Milly has 3 groups of animals; one group of llamas, and two groups of lambs, meaning we divide the number of animals she has by 3.

9 ÷ 3 = 3.

This tells us Milly has just 3 llamas, because 3 is one group of 9, and 3 × 2 = 6,  because she has twice the amount of lambs.

Billy has 2 lambs and 6 llamas.

Milly has 6 lambs and 3 llamas.

The amount of lambs is irrelevant to our final answer, so we can disregard them and do a final sum of 6 + 3 = 9, which gives us our answer.