peter has n marbles. He has 5 more marbles than Tom. How many marbles does Tom have?
What do you think?
To find out how many marbles Tom has, we need to use the information given, which states that Peter has 5 more marbles than Tom. Let's break it down step by step.
Let's assume Tom has m marbles.
According to the information, Peter has 5 more marbles than Tom. So, Peter has m + 5 marbles.
We also know that Peter has n marbles. So we can write down the equation:
m + 5 = n
To find out how many marbles Tom has, we need to isolate the variable m. We can do this by subtracting 5 from both sides of the equation:
m + 5 - 5 = n - 5
This simplifies to:
m = n - 5
Therefore, Tom has n - 5 marbles.