Luke's collection has 27 more postcards in it than Brian's collection. Put together, their collections have 135 total postcards. How many postcards does Luke have? How many postcards does Brian have?

Question

how much do each of the have

Answer 1

If Brian has x number of postcards, then Luke has x + 27 postcards. In total they have x + x + 27 postcards.

We know that x + x + 27 = 135. From there we combines the x’s on the left side of the equation to get:

2x + 27 = 135.

Next we subtract 27 from both sides of the equation to get:

2x = 108.

Dividing both sides by 2:

x = 54. So Brian has 54 postcards. Since Luke has 27 more than Brian, he has 54 + 27, which is 81 postcards. You can double-check the answer by adding Brian’s solved number of postcards to Luke’s solved number. What do 54 + 81 =? 135, just what the problem told us.