word problem

Question

To make an international telephone? call, you need the code for the country you are calling. The codes for country? A, country? B, and C are three consecutive integers whose sum is 8181.
Find the code for each country.

 

can u possibly show me step by step how you worked it out

 

Answer 1

Let:

    x = code for country A

 

This is important:  "the codes are three consecutive integers"    That means,

    x is code for country A

    (x+1) is code for country B

    (x+2) is code for country C

 

"whose sum is 81"     means

   x  +  (x+1)  +  (x+2) = 81

 

     3x + 3 = 81           [collect like terms]

       3x = 78              [subtract 3 from both sides]

         x = 26             [divide both sides by 3]

 

The codes are:   26, 27, 28

 

Check:

   Is   26+27+28 = 81   ?

               81 = 81   ?yes