Impossible algebra problem?
I've literally spent hours on this problem and for the life of me I can't figure it out.
"A group of travelers charter a bus for $900. At the last minute 5 people drop out of the group. This raises the cost per member by $2. How many people were there originally in the group?"
Can somebody please tell me what the equation for this is? To me it looks like it's impossible to come up with an equation for it...
Comments
Okay - let's say there are x people to start with. In that case:
$900/(x-5) - $900/x = $2
450 (x - (x-5))/x(x-5) = 1
450 (5 / x(x-5)) = 1
2250 = x(x-5)
x^2 - 5x - 2250 = 0
(x-50)(x+45) = 0
And we get x=50. So there were 50 people in the group originally.
very good kevin