Andre came up with the following puzzle “I am three years younger than my brother and I am 2 years older than my sister. My moms age is one less than three times my brothers age. When you add all our ages you get 87. What are our ages?
write an equation with fewer terms
Let's simplify the given information into an equation with fewer terms.
Let's denote Andre's brother's age as x, Andre's age as y, Andre's sister's age as z, and Andre's mom's age as m.
From the given information, we can deduce the following equations:
1) y = x - 3 (Andre is three years younger than his brother)
2) y = z + 2 (Andre is two years older than his sister)
3) m = 3x - 1 (Andre's mom's age is one less than three times Andre's brother's age)
4) x + y + z + m = 87 (when you add all their ages, it equals 87)
By substituting equations 1) and 2) into equation 4), we can simplify to:
x + (x - 3) + (x - 2) + m = 87
This equation with fewer terms represents the given information.