There are 7 cupcakes for the party. Each cupcake has 1 candle for each year of the birthday boy's age. There is also an extra candle on each cupcake for good luck. If 49 candles were used on the cupcakes, how old is the birthday boy? Explain.
49/7 = 7
The boy must be 6.
Thanks, Ms. Sue!!
You're welcome, RJ.
To find the age of the birthday boy, we need to determine how many candles are on each cupcake and then subtract the extra candles.
Let's start by counting the total number of candles on each cupcake. We know that each cupcake has one candle for each year of the birthday boy's age, so if there are 7 cupcakes, there are a total of 7 times the age of the birthday boy candles on the cupcakes.
Next, we need to account for the extra candle on each cupcake for good luck. Since there are 7 cupcakes, there are also 7 extra candles.
Adding these together, we have the total number of candles on the cupcakes: the age of the birthday boy times 7 (from the individual candles) plus 7 (from the extra candles).
According to the information given in the question, there are 49 candles in total. Therefore, we can set up the equation:
Age of the birthday boy x 7 + 7 = 49
To solve for the age of the birthday boy, we can isolate the variable. Let's subtract 7 from both sides of the equation:
Age of the birthday boy x 7 = 42
Now, we can divide both sides by 7 to solve for the age of the birthday boy:
Age of the birthday boy = 42 / 7
Simplifying the right side of the equation:
Age of the birthday boy = 6
Therefore, the birthday boy is 6 years old.