College

Clara lends half her collection of formal dresses, \(d\), to her sister, Susan. Clara then buys four more dresses. If she has 12 dresses now, how many dresses did Clara have originally?

Clara originally had ___ dresses.

Answer :

SOLUTION

Step 1: Write an equation for the word problem and solve.

[tex]\begin{gathered} (d-\frac{d}{2})+4=12 \\ \frac{2d-d+8}{2}=12 \\ \frac{d+8}{2}=12 \\ d+8=24 \\ d=24-8 \\ d=16 \end{gathered}[/tex]

Clara originally had 16 dresses.