A college bookstore ordered 6 boxes of red pens. The store sold 32 red pens last week and 35 red pens this week. Five pens were left on the shelf. How many pens were in the box? How would you solve it and check answer into the original problem?

(32 + 35 + 5)/6 = ?

67.83333333

I don't know where Cyna got her answer, but it is not the answer to the above problem.

To solve this problem, we can use algebra. Let's assume the number of pens in each box is represented by the variable "x".

We know that the college bookstore ordered 6 boxes of red pens, so the total number of pens would be 6 times "x".

The store sold 32 red pens last week and 35 red pens this week, so the total number of pens sold would be the sum of these two quantities: 32 + 35 = 67 pens.

Since 5 pens were left on the shelf, we can subtract this amount from the total number of pens to find the number of pens sold: 67 - 5 = 62 pens.

Now we can set up an equation to represent the given information:
6x = 62

To solve the equation for "x", we can divide both sides by 6:
x = 62/6
x = 10.33

Since we can't have a fraction of a pen, we can conclude that each box contained 10 pens.

To check the answer, we can multiply the number of boxes (6) by the number of pens in each box (10):
6 x 10 = 60

Since 60 is close to 62 (the total number of pens sold), we can say that our answer is reasonable. However, we need to consider that some pens might have been sold individually rather than from each box, leading to a slightly higher total number than expected.