PROBLEM: A woman gets on a scale with her baby and her dog. The scale reads 170 pounds. The woman weighs a hundred pounds more than the sum of the baby's and the dog's weight. The dog weighs 60% less than the baby. Find all their weights.
SOLVING:
Knowing that the woman weighs 100 lbs more than the sum of the baby's and the dog's weight, I assumed that the baby + dog's weight was 70 lbs total and the woman's was therefore 100 lbs. To the gets the dog's weight, I simply set up a proportion (40/100 = x/70) because the dog weighs 60% less than the baby and found that the dog weighed 28 pounds. Next, I subtracted 28 from 70 to get the baby's weight, 42 lbs. and finally added 100 lbs (woman's weight) to make sure it added up to 170lbs. It did, but am I correct? It seems like the way I solved this problem was to simple to get the right answer.
SOLVING:
Knowing that the woman weighs 100 lbs more than the sum of the baby's and the dog's weight, I assumed that the baby + dog's weight was 70 lbs total and the woman's was therefore 100 lbs. To the gets the dog's weight, I simply set up a proportion (40/100 = x/70) because the dog weighs 60% less than the baby and found that the dog weighed 28 pounds. Next, I subtracted 28 from 70 to get the baby's weight, 42 lbs. and finally added 100 lbs (woman's weight) to make sure it added up to 170lbs. It did, but am I correct? It seems like the way I solved this problem was to simple to get the right answer.