Expert: Scott A Wilson - 3/28/2010

Question
an eight-year-old boy named Nathan wants to compare his age with that of his mother and grandfather. His mother is exactly four times his age and his grandfather is exactly seven times his age. How old is Nathan's mother? How is his Grandfather?

1.underline the key pieces of info contained in the problem statement.
2. b)can you rewrite the problem statement in the form of an equation? if so, what is required for you to write it?
  c)can the mother's age be found using the same problem solving strategy as the one used to find the grandfather's age? explain.
3. d)solve the equations. how old is Nathan's mother? how is his grandfather?
  e)one year from now, will the dame relationship exist between Nathan's age and of his mother and grandfather? use numbers to illustrate your answer.

Answer
1. What to underline would be "eight-year-old boy", "mother is exactly four times his age ",
"grandfather is exactly seven times his age".

2. Condensing these, we get "boy: 8", "mother: 4*boy", "grandfather 7*boy".
In other words, B=8, M=4B, G=7B.

3. We are given B=8, so M=32 and G=56.

1 year from now, it won't exist, for in 1 year, B=9, M=33, and G=57.
As can be seen, B is not 8, M is not 4B, and G is not 7B.