Peter has 30 pencils and Tony has 14. How many pencils must Tony give Peter so that Peter shall have 3 times as many as Tony?

Question

Linear equations

Answer 1

Let p be the number of pencils.

3(14-p)=30+p

42-3p=30+p

4p=12, p=3.

So Peter ends up with 33 and Tony with 11. 3*11=33, so that confirms that Tony gave Peter 3 pencils.