Question

Eleanor has two children, jake and julie. jake is 4 years older than julie and the sum of hteir ages is 22 how old are the children

Answer 1

We need to develop an equation with only one variable in it so that we may begin to work out each age.

Let x be the age of Julie, such that Jake = x + 4

x + (x + 4) = 22 (sum of their ages)
2x + 4 = 22
2x = 18
x = 9

So, Julie is 9 years old and Jake is 13 years old.