Question

Alice has 12 more trees in her garden than Stephen has. After Stephen planted 10 more trees and Alice dug out 4, toget her they had 36 trees. How many trees did each of them have at the beginning?

Answer 1

Answer:

• Alice: 21 trees
• Stephen: 9 trees

Step-by-step explanation:

After the changes, the total was 6 more than at the beginning. So the beginning number of trees was 36-6 = 30. If we let "a" represent the number of trees Alice started with, then ...

  a + (a-12) = 30

  2a = 42

  a = 21 . . . . . Alice started with 21 trees

  a-12 = 9 . . . Stephen started with 9 trees

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Check

After removal, Alice had 17 trees. After planting, Stephen had 19 trees. Then their total was 17 +19 = 36 trees. The solution checks.

Answer 2

I attach the file with the explanation and the answers. Hope this can help you.