Multi step equations

Question

Mrs. Telles bakes a turkey for Thanksgiving. She gives one-seventh of the turkey to her neighbors. If her family consumed two-thirds of the turkey and 3.6 pounds of meat remains, how much did the turkey originally weigh?

Answer 1

Ok, so the turkey weighs x pounds.

If she gives away 1/7x of her turkey to her neighbors and her family consumed two-thirds of it, mathematically

this reads as:

x-1/7x-2/3x=3.6, since there is 3.6 pounds remaining after everyone got their fair share.

So now we want to change the coefficients on the variable x such that they have the LCD, so our new equation is:

21/21*x-3/21*x-14/21*x=3.6

4/21*x=3.6

21/4*4/21*x=3.6*21/4

x=18.9.

So we started out with 18.9 pounds of turkey.