Tim bought 9 new baseball trading cards to add to his collection. The next day his dog ate half of his collection. There are now only 24 cards left. How many cards did Tim start with?

Question

6528 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2016-11-01T17:01:59

Tim had #39# baseball trading cards to start with.

Let the original number of baseball trading cards in Tim's possession be #x#.

An equation to arrive at the number will be:

#(x+9)/2=24#

This is because half the collection AFTER adding #9# new cards is #24# (the other half was eaten by his dog).

Multiply both sides by #2#.

#x+9=48#

Subtract #9# from both sides.

#x=39#