At a supermarket sale, 2 more than half of the number of apples were taken out from a box. Later, 2 fewer than half of the remaining number of apples were taken out again. If 20 apples were left in the box, how many apples were there at first?
20
1
x/2 + 2 taken, leaving x/2 - 2
(x/2 - 2)/2 - 2 taken, leaving x/4 + 1
so, x/4 + 1 = 20
x = 76
check:
76 - 40 = 36
36 - 16 = 20
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. Could you please provide more context or information about what you are referring to?
To solve this problem, let's work backwards.
We know that there were 20 apples left in the box after the second withdrawal. So, before the second withdrawal, we had (20 + 2) apples.
Now, we need to find the number of apples before the first withdrawal. We know that "2 more than half of the number of apples were taken out from the box." This means that before the first withdrawal, we had (20 + 2) + 2 apples.
Simplifying this, we have 24 apples before the first withdrawal.
Therefore, there were 24 apples at first.