My name: Junior
I am in High school (12)

Problem:

Marvin and his four friends wish to invest in a yacht by sharing equally in the cost. As the date of sale approaches, Marvin realizes that if three more people join the partnership, each partner's share would decrease by $18,000. How much does the yacht cost?

Any help is great! Thanks

Hi Junior,

In this problem there are two important quantities that you don't know. One is the cost of the yacht and the other is the initial amount each of the five partners invested. In order to write some equations I need variable names for these quantities. I will call Y the cost of the yacht and A the amount each of the five partners initially invested, both in dollars.

The first sentence

Marvin and his four friends wish to invest in a yacht by sharing equally in the cost. can then be written Y = 5A When the 3 more investors join, the five initial investors find that their shares each decrease by $18,000. That is they only need invest A - 18,000 dollars. Now there are 8 investors, each with an equal investment of A - 18,000 dollars. Thus Y = 8(A - 18,000)

Use these two equations for Y to find A, and then Y.

Cheers,
Penny
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