Word problems

Is, was, are, will be, am, have , has, had , will have, as the same as, as =
many as, as much as, any verb that means seems.
Exceeds, increased by, more than, older than, further than, got, received, +
gained, added to, and sum
Decreased by, less than, gave, lost ,subtracted from, difference, -
Off.
Product, of, times , multiplied by. X
Per, for ,a, quotient, divided by ÷
Greater than >
Less than <
At least, minimum ≥
At most, maximum, no more than ≤
A number, what, how many, how much a,x

1- How to differentiate between greater than” >” and greater than” +”

a) Mr. Sharif is 23 years older than Haween
S=H+23
b) Mr. Sharif Is older than Haween
S>H
c) Mr. Sharif is older than 38
S>38
d) Mr. Sharif is 1 year older than 38
S= 38 + 1
2- -----------than , added to , subtracted from.
Ex. A is subtracted from B
B–A
Ex.
A is 5 more than B
A=B+5
3- Exceeds
- a exceeds b by 3
a=b+3
4- “and” is a stationary point
a) the sum of a and b a+b
b) the product of a and b aXb
c) quotient of a and b a÷b
d) the difference between a and b a – b
5- “times”
a) times never jump.
- the sum of two times a and b 2a + b
- Two time the sum of a and b 2(a + b) or 2a + 2b
b) Times sometimes invisible
- Double, Twice 2 times
- Triple, thrice 3 times
- Quadruple 4 times
2
- 2 fifth x
5
Ex. a is added to 2 fifth b
2
a+ b
5
6- Any word that means” =” is weaker than any word that means any other operation ,
when we have two consecutive words one means “=” and one means any other
operation we are going to delete the word that means”=”
Ex. a is at least 5
a≥5
7- Requirement at the end of the of the problem sometimes has special translation
𝑎
o a is what fraction of b
𝑏
𝑎
o a is how many times b
𝑏
𝑎
o a is what percent of b x 100
𝑏
𝑎−𝑏
o a is how many times greater than b
𝑏
𝑎−𝑏
o a is what percent greater than b x100
𝑏
o then by how much does a greater than b a–b
o how much is a less than b b–a
o …………, then by how much does a exceeds b, a–b
8- Expressions in powers & roots:
a. The square root of X means √𝑥
3
b. The cube or cubic root of X means √𝑥
c. The square of X X2
d. The cube of X X3
Designing systems of equations:

Form (1)
𝑦 = 𝑚𝑥 + 𝑏
b ⟹ initial, start, basic,flat,current, any number at the starting date,at no “x” , at “x=0”,any
unique number e.g. the weight of the empty tank is 50kg and and each liter of the solution
weighs 2kg. y=2x+50.

m⟹ each, per, every,for, a or an, any word with “ly like hourly, daily, monthly,yearly”,
increase or decrease, one,”1” .

Note: when the questioner asks about the meaning of m in a question, then it is the increase
or decease of y , or the amount of y for every x.

ex: a health club charges $300 for the 1st time membership, and $ 10 for each session, write
a formula to find the total amount of money a member will be charged for x visits?
ans:
𝑦 = 10𝑥 + 300

Form (2)

𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑥 + 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑦 = 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙

ex1: each apple juice costs $5, and each orange juice costs $3, write a formula to represent
the total cost of x apple juices and y orange juices?
Ans.
5𝑥 + 3𝑦 = 𝑇
ex2: a teacher has $200 to purchase juices for for his students in a trip, if each apple juice
costs $5 and each orange juice costs $3, if he purchased 20 orange juices, how many apple
juices could he purchase with the remaining money?

Ans.
5𝑥 + 3(20) = 200

5𝑥 + 60 = 200

200 − 60
𝑥= = 28
5

Form 3:
𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑥 + 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑦 = 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙
𝑥 + 𝑦 = 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟
ex: in a store each cap costs $15 and each T-shirt costs $20, if in one day the store sold 30
pieces, and earned $500, write an expression to represent this relationship?

Ans:
15𝑐 + 20𝑇 = 500
𝑐 + 𝑡 = 30
Special cases of form “3”
Case 1: solutions
ex1:
x liters of a 30% saline is to be added to y liters of a 10% saline solution to form 8 liters of
a 15% concentrate saline solution, find the value of x ?
0.30𝑥 + 0.10𝑦 = 8 × 0.15
𝑥+𝑦 =8

Case 2: dry mix

ex2:
Due to unknown sandrom 30% of the men and 20% of the women of the 800 people
population in a village became bald, and there were 210 bald people in that
village,howmany women became bald?
0.30𝑚 + 0.20𝑤 = 210
𝑚 + 𝑤 = 800
 𝑤 = 300
𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑑 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛 = 300 × 0.2 = 60
Form 4:
𝑉 = 𝑣𝑚 + (𝑛 − 𝑚) × 𝑅
In a taxi drive the 1st 3 miles cost $5,and each additional mile costs $2

𝑉 = 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒

𝑣𝑚 = value of 1st m units “the 1st 3 miles in a taxi drive cost $5”

𝑚 = the 1st m uints “the 1st 3 miles in a taxi drive cost $5”

𝑅 = additional rate of each additional unit “each additional unit costs $2”

𝑛 = is the number of units either given or required “ex: the entire trip was 21 miles”,

“Or if the trip costed $54, the entire trip was howmany miles”

most important examples of form 4:

𝑒𝑥1 : in a taxi drive the 1st 3 miles cost $5,and each additional mile costs $2, what is the
total cost of a 20 miles trip?
𝑎𝑛𝑠: 5 + (20 − 3) × 2 = 39

𝑒𝑥2 : in a taxi drive the 1st 3 miles cost $5,and each additional mile costs $2, what is the
total is the total distance in miles of a trip that cost $21 ?
𝑎𝑛𝑠: 5 + (𝑛 − 3) × 2 = 21
𝑛 = 11
st
𝑒𝑥3 : in a taxi drive the 1 3 miles cost $5,and each additional mile costs $2, write an
expression to represent the previous relationship in its simplest form ?
𝑎𝑛𝑠: 5 + (𝑛 − 3) × 2 =
5 + 2𝑛 − 6 =
2𝑛 − 1
The graph of the previous relationship is:

Special cases of form 4:

Case 1: splitting Vm into “V” value of each unit of 1st “m”units

ex:
a mobile company charges $ 0.20 for each minute for the 1st 500 units, and $ 0.10 for
each additional minute, write down a formula to represent the total cost of n minutes,
such that n> 500 ?
ans: 0.20 × 500 + (𝑛 − 500) × 0.10 =
= 100 + 0.10𝑛 − 50
= 50 + 0.10𝑛

the graph in this case will be:

Case 2: when asking about the additional units
ex: Yousif worked in a restaurant for 10 hours at $8 per hour, because of his good work
his manager decided to increase his payment to $10 per hour, how many additional
hours are needed to raise a fund of $300?

Ans: 10 × 8 + (𝑛 − 10) × 10 = 300 alt. sol: let (𝑛 − 𝑚) = 𝑦

80 × 10𝑛 − 100 = 300 10 × 8 + 10𝑦 = 300
10𝑛 = 320 10𝑦 = 220
𝑛 = 32 𝑦 = 22
𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 32 − 10 = 22

Case 3: cost of an additional units must be a cost of one whole unit ?

1 1
ex: in a taxi trip the cost of the 1st a mile costs $3, and the cost of each additional of
2 8
mile costs $0.25, write a formula in the simplest form to represent the total cost of “n”
miles?
ans: 1st calculate the rate for each additional mile
1
0.25 ÷ = 2
8
1
Then: 3 + (𝑛 − ) × 2 = 3 + 2𝑛 − 1 = 2 + 2𝑛
2
 Special word problems
Type 1: increase or decrease in group and total.
Ex1: the ratio of boys to girls in a certain class was 3:2, after 10 more boys
joined the class the ratio became 5:2, what was the original number of
boys in that class?
Ans:
Old ratio of boys New ratio of boys
3𝑥+10 5
=
5𝑥+10 7
Old ratio of the entire class New ratio of the enitre class

Ex2: on a certain day, in a class of 50 students, 20 of whom were boys, a

number of boys were absent so that the ratio of boys to girls on that day was
1:3, how many boys were absent on that day?
Ans:
20 − 𝑥 1
=
50 − 𝑥 4

𝑥 = 10
Type 2: Impact of change in price on change of quantity sold:
Ex: a store is selling nowadays 200 T-shirts per day at a price of $12 per T-
shirt.the store estimates that if it increase the price of its T-shirts by $2, the
number of T-shirts it sells per day will decrease by 20 T-shirts
Ans:
Common steps whatever the reqiurment is:
$ T
12 200
(12 + 2n) × (200 – 20n) = 0
12 + 2n = 0 200 – 20n = 0
n =- 6 or n = 10
−6 + 10
=2
2
then you are going to answer one of the following questions:
1- What is the at which the stores achieves the maximum profit?

12 + 2(2) = $24

2- What is the number of T-shirts the store ahd to sell to achieve the
maximum profit?

200 – 20(2) = 160

3- What is the maximum profit the store can achieve?

[ 12 + 2(2)] [200 – 20(2)] = $ 2560

Type 3: Deducting more than sub group from a total or from what was left:

Ex1: yahia spent oen third of his salary at the first week ,half of it in the
second d week, and the remaining was $200.

Ans: common steps:

1st week 2nd week

1 1
𝑥 − 𝑥 − 𝑥 = 200
3 2
𝑥 = 1200
Then you may be asked any of the following questions:

What is Yahia’s total salary?

𝑥 = 1200
Howmuch money did Yahia spent in the 1st week?
1
𝑥 = 400
3
Howmuch money did Yahia spent in the 2nd week?
1
𝑥 = 600
2
Ex1: yahia spent oen third of his salary at the first week ,half of the remaining
in the second d week, and the remaining was $100.

Ans: common steps:

1st week 2nd week

1 2 1 2
𝑥 − 𝑥 = 𝑥 − ( 𝑥) = 100
3 3 2 3
2 1 2
𝑥 − ( 𝑥) = 100
3 2 3
𝑥 = 300
Then you may be asked any of the following questions:

What is Yahia’s total salary?

𝑥 = 300
Howmuch money did Yahia spent in the 1st week?
1
𝑥 = 100
3
Howmuch money did Yahia spent in the 2nd week?
1 2
( 𝑥) = 100
2 3
Type 4: profit and loss formula:

𝑝 = (𝑠𝑢 − 𝑣𝑢 ) − 𝑓
𝑠𝑢 : selling price per unit.

𝑣𝑢 : variable cost per unit.

𝑓 : fixed cost

Note:

- some times the Su & Vu are combined together in one figure called profit
per unit Pu
- sometimes the fixed cost is not introduced in the problem.

Ex: a certain company sells the cap it produces at $5 per cap, and pduces it at
$3 per cap, what is the revenue from selling 1000 caps, if the factory
needs to install an $800 machine to prduce these caps?

Ans: 1000(5 − 3) − 800 = 1200