The girls high school basketball team played 12 games. They won 6 more games than they lost. Find the number of games the basketball team won.

Answer 1

Let's give some notations for the unknown numbers.

Say, L is the number of games lost and W is the number of games won.

Total number of games played=12

Assuming that there were no draw games,

L+W=12 ---> equation (1)

Also, it says they won 6 more games than they lost. That can be written as

W=L+6 ---> equation (2)

Now, we have two unknowns and two equations. We can solve them and find actual values for L and W.

Out of many ways to solve this, I'll pick the method below.

I'll take equation (2) and substitute it in equation (1) for W. Then I'll get

L+(L+6)=12

---> 2*L+6=12

---> 2*L=12-6

---> 2*L=6

---> L=6/2

---> L=3 (Number of lost games)

Since they won 6 more games than they lost,

Number of games won= 3+6 =9.

Answer 2

Hi Michael,

If L = number of gaves lost and W = number of games won, and they have played a total of 12 games, then

L + W = 12

Also, if they have won 6 more games than they have lost, then W = L + 6, substitute this into the equation above and get

L + L + 6 = 12

Combine like terms

2L + 6 = 12

Subtract 6 from both sides

2L = 6

Divide both sides by 2

L = 3

So they have LOST 3 games, which means they have WON 9 games (which is 6 more games than they lost, so we know we got the answer right!) :-)