There are 6 times as many dogs as cats. If the total number of dogs and cats is 21, how many dogs are there?
1 Answer
There are 18 dogs.
Explanation:
In questions like these it is very easy to multiply the wrong variable by 6, or whatever number, because that is what the English sounds like it is telling us.
There are
However, what it is actually saying is that the number of dogs is ALREADY 6 TIMES more. Do not make the number of dogs even more by multiplying that by 6.
For example:
We would not multiply the 30 by 6!
Let the smaller number be
Let the number of cats be
The number of dogs is 6 times more than the number of cats:
The number of dogs is
Together there are 21 animals:
There are 3 cats and