A basketball player scores an average of 18.6 points per game for five games. How many points must he score in the next game to raise his average to 20 points per game?

Answer 1

An average is found by adding all of the numbers in the set and then dividing this sum by how many numbers there are in the set. So, 18.6 is the result of adding five different scores and then dividing by 5. If we multiply the 18.6 by 5, we find the sum of his scores for the five games which is 93 points.

Now, let's create an equation to find the score he needs to raise his average to the 20 points per game.

If we add the score of the next game to the scores of the first five games, we get 93 + x ("x" is the score of the next game, which we do not know). If we take the new sum, 93 + x, and divide it by 6 now instead of 5 (remember, there are 6 numbers now because 6 games have been played), we should get an average of 20. This is our equation: (93 + x) / 6 = 20. Now we can solve for x.

Multiply both sides by 6 to get 93 + x = 120. Next, subtract 93 from both sides to get x = 27.

This value, x, represents the score the player must get in the 6th game to get an average of 20 points per game.