Posted by T.Gracken on November 01, 2002 at 13:35:07:
In Reply to: Amount of Money posted by Randy on November 01, 2002 at 12:06:23:
: $40,000 was won in a lottery. After taxes of 25 per cent, the money was divided as follows: the mother received twice as much as the three sons, the two sisters received 500 dollars in addition to 1/5 as much as the mother. How much did each receive?
: Please show step by step. Thank you for your help.
This is a poorly written problem. It is very ambiguous.
1. the mother received twice as much as the three sons. To me (correct me if I'm wrong Mathbard) this means the mother received twice as much as all three sons received together. However, I'm inclined to believe the problem writer meant, "the mother received twice as much as each of the three sons".
2. same problem with the two sisters received 500 dollars in addition to 1/5 as much as the mother. I read this as the two daughters (together) received "500+1/5 what the mother received", then split it between them. Again, I'm inclined to believe the writer meant, "each daughter received 500 + 1/5 what the mother received".
The reason I am inclined to believe that writer meant something different than what was written is the question: "how much did each receive?"
...so, I will await more input and just state that if I interpret the problem as written (or at least how I read it), then
the three sons receive $8676.47 (to be split among them)
the mother receives twice that, or $17352.94,
and the two daughters receive $3970.59 (to be split between them)
this totals to $30000 which is the winnings minus taxes.