Age word problems are a fun way to apply algebra skills to a real-life scenario. An example of an age problem is: Abigail is 3 years older than her cousin Amelia. The sum of their ages is 9. How old are the girls? The word problem is solved by setting up an algebraic equation, X + (X + 3) = 9, where X is the variable for the age. After solving the equation for X, the information for X is used to determine the girls' ages: 3 years old and 6 years old.
Since money is a part of everyday life, it's a natural element in an algebraic word problem. Consider the teacher has 26 coins in his pocket, consisting of quarters and silver dollars. The sum of the coins is $17. In order to solve this problem, q is the variable for how many of the coins are quarters, and d is the variable for dollars. The equation for the coin problem is: q quarters + d dollars = $17. After turning all denominations into cents, you solve for one variable then use that information to solve for both denominations. The answer to this fun algebra problem is 12 quarters and 14 silver dollars.
The equation for distance is d = rt, or distance equals rate multiplied by time. An example of a distance problem is two friends who live 240 miles apart and want to meet up. Their parents agree to meet in the middle for them to visit each other. One family drives the speed limit of 70 MPH while the other family speeds at 80 MPH. How long will it take them to meet? To set up the equation, the variable t is substituted for time, and the equation becomes 70t + 80t = 240. After solving for t and substituting it into the equation, the answer will be the amount of time it takes for the families to meet: 1 hour and 36 minutes.
A useful and fun algebra word problem is to determine the percentage of a discount. An example of this type of problem is a pair of jeans originally cost $25 and was discounted to $15. What percentage is the discount? In order to solve this problem, a ratio needs to be created of the difference between the original price and the sale price which is 15:25/25. After solving this equation, it will be determined that the discount is 40 percent.