URGENT!!!! I cant do anything else till I get the answer right in my math course in cyberschool

Question

Alma was given some money as a gift and deposited it into a savings account. She makes a withdrawal of the same amount at the end of each month. At the end of the 5th month, her balance was $442. At the end of the 13th month, her balance was $226. How much money was Alma given as a gift?

Answer 1

Hi Gina--

 

No worries--this isn't so tough.

 

At the end of the 5th month, you have 442. At the end of the 13th, you have just 226. That means that over 8 months, you've taken out 216 bucks. (442 - 226 = 216.)

 

So divide that by 8 to see how much comes out each month:

 

216 divided by 8 = 27 bucks each month. That means that for each of the months leading up to (and including the 5th), you took out 27 bucks.

 

So that's 27 x 5, which is . . . 135.

 

So add 135 dollars back onto the 442 you had at the end of the 5th month, and it seems you started with...

 

135 + 442 = 577 dollars.

 

Double check: 577 - (27 x 5) = 442. Then 442 - (27 x 8) = 226.

 

And 577 - (27 x 13) = 577 - 351 = 226 too.

 

So there you go!

 

Hope this helps!

 

All best,

 

Matt in New York

Answer 2

Hello Gina,

 

Don't worry. This isn't as difficult as it seems. Ok, so the first thing we always need to do is get as much information from the word problem as possible. From this problem, we are told that Alma was given an amount of money as a gift and deposited it into a savings account. She makes a withdrawal of the same amount at the end of each month. At the end of the 5th month, her balance was $442. At the end of the 13th month, her balance was $226. How much money was Alma given as a gift?"

 

One really important thing to remember is that Alma withdraws (takes out) the same amount of money every month from the bank account. From this, we can solve for our first number.

 

We know the 13th and 5th month amounts which are $226 and $442. We simply do the following and divide by the number of months to see how much Alma takes out every month. We do:

 

($442-$226)/8 = $27 per month that Alma withdraws

 

From this, we add $27 five times for the first five months that Alma took out $27 in order to get the original x amount that Alma was given. We do:

 

$27 * 5 = $135

 

Now, we simply add $135 (the amount Alma withdrew through the first 5 months) to $442 (the amount Alma had after 5 months) and thus get the original amount, $577.

 

You can double check by doing $577 - (13 months * $27) = $226 which is the amount Alma had after 13 months as we were told in the problem. 

As well, $577 - (5 months * $27) = $442 which is the amount Alma had after 5 months.

 

I hope you get it now. :)  

Answer 3

A) how many months after the 5th month until the 13th month?

B) how much money was taken out between that many months?

C) divide the answers (B by A) to find out how much was taken each month.

D) multiply (C) by 5, the number of months that amount was taken out after the initial deposit.

E) Add that (D) to the amount left at the end of the fifth month.