At their going-out-of-business sale, Bill's Bikes sold 41 bikes and had 60 left. Which equation could be used to find x, the number the store irst had?

Question

At their going-out-of-business sale, Bill's Bikes sold 41 bikes and had 60 left. Which equation could be used to find x, the number of bikes the store had originally?

Answer 1

If we look at the original problem, we see that Bill's Bikes had 60 bikes left over and had sold 41 bikes, our original amount of bikes can be expressed as:

 

Number of original bikes = Leftover Bikes + Sold Bikes

 

Number of original bikes is the variable we are being asked to find, so:

 

x = 60 + 41

 

However, as this problem is phrased, Bill's Bikes sold 41 bikes to get 60 bikes left over, thus they want you to write the equation as:

 

x = 60 + 41

-41        -41

 

x - 41 = 60

 

A simple rearrangement of terms gives you this solution. "The Bikes we had (x) minus the bikes we sold (41) gives us the bikes left over (60)"