3rd grade question

rcp1966

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Feb 14, 2012
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Marco and his dad have an age difference of 25 years. the sum of their ages is 43. How old is Marco?
 
Marco and his dad have an age difference of 25 years. the sum of their ages is 43. How old is Marco?

Since this is a 3rd grade problem - we should not use algebra. Then the best way to do this is educated guess as follows:

Lets look at middle of 43 - and say the dad's age is 22 and son is 21. But the difference is only 1 - we need 25

So let's add 10 years to Dad's age and subtract 10 from son's age - we get Dad = 32 and son = 11 → difference = 21

still not enough difference - so again subtract 5 from son's age and add 5 to Dad's age → we get Dad = 37 and son = 6 → difference = 31

oop's too much difference - let's add 2 to son's age and subtract 2 from Dad's age → we get Dad = 35 and son = 8 → difference = 27

oop's too much difference - let's add 1 to son's age and subtract 1 from Dad's age → we get Dad = 34 and son = 9 → difference = 25 ← we got it!!

So Dad's age is 34 yrs. and son's age is 9 yrs.
 
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