Fred and Natalie add their ages up and it totals 46. Fred is 4 times older than Natalie, so how old is she?

Answer 1

okay so it was a weird question because that isn't a whole numbers but here is how you solve it. First what you do is take the information you don't know (Fred and Natalie names) and express it as a variable (a letter that is a substitute for a number value). In this case all we know is that Fred is 4 times as old as Natalie, so we need to find how old Natalie is. So we will N= Natalie's age, then we need to set up an equation. it would be 4N + N = 46 ( meaning Fred's age + Natalie's age = 46). Finally we solve, which will look like 4N+N= 5N. You take 5N = 46 and divide it on both sides which gives you and answer of N=9.2 so Natalie's 9.2 years old. you can check this by doing 46-9.2 = 36.8 which the age of Fred and is 4 times as much as 9.2