Question

sara nick and robin were collecting cans for a recycling project . sara collected 5 times as many cans as robin . nick collected 6 times as many cans as robin . the 3 children collected a total 216 cans . how many cans did they each collect?

Answer 1

r = robins cans
s = sara's cans
n = nick's cans
T = total cans

s = 5r
n = 6r
T = 216 = s + r + n

we sub in the first two equations into the first

216 = 5r + 6r + r
216 = 12r
r = 18
sub this back into equations 1 and 2

thus

r = 18
s = 90
n = 108