Question

Forest bought a box of chocolates for himself last week. However, by the time forest got home he had eaten 1/3 of the box. As Forest was putting the groceries away, he at 1/4 of what was left. There are now 12 chocolates left in the box.

How many chocolates were in the box to begin?

Be sure to show and explain all your reasoning.

Answer 1

There were 24 chocolates in the box to begin with.

Explanation:

Let's use working backwards to solve this problem.

We know that there are 12 chocolates left in the box. Let's call the number of chocolates that were in the box to begin with "x".

After eating 1/4 of what was left, Forest had 3/4 of the chocolates left. So, we can set up an equation:

3/4 (x - 1/3x) = 12

We can simplify this equation by multiplying both sides by 4/3:

x - 1/3x = 16

Multiplying both sides by 3:

2x = 48

x = 24

Therefore, there were 24 chocolates in the box to begin with.