Questions: Susan bought 8 books. Susan bought 4 times as many books as Tony. Let b be the number of books that Tony bought. (a) Write an equation that relates the number of books that they bought. Use 8,4 , and b. (b) Find b.

Susan bought 8 books. Susan bought 4 times as many books as Tony. Let b be the number of books that Tony bought.
(a) Write an equation that relates the number of books that they bought. Use 8,4 , and b.
(b) Find b.

Transcript text: Susan bought 8 books. Susan bought 4 times as many books as Tony. Let $b$ be the number of books that Tony bought. (a) Write an equation that relates the number of books that they bought. Use 8,4 , and $b$. (b) Find $b$.

Solution

Solution Steps

To solve this problem, we need to establish a relationship between the number of books Susan and Tony bought. We know that Susan bought 8 books and this is 4 times the number of books Tony bought. We can express this relationship with an equation. Once we have the equation, we can solve for the number of books Tony bought, denoted as $ b $.

Step 1: Establish the Relationship

Susan bought 8 books, which is 4 times the number of books Tony bought. We can express this relationship with the equation: \[ 8 = 4 \times b \] where $ b $ is the number of books Tony bought.

Step 2: Solve for $ b $

To find the number of books Tony bought, solve the equation for $ b $: \[ b = \frac{8}{4} \]

Step 3: Calculate the Value of $ b $

Perform the division: \[ b = 2 \]