Running Head: POLYA’S PROBLEM SOLVING: FAMILY COUNTING

Polya’s Problem Solving: Family Counting

Carrie Nader

MATH 2010

9/19/18

Salt Lake Community College

Running Head: POLYA’S PROBLEM SOLVING: FAMILY COUNTING
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PROBLEM:

​Suppose that each daughter in your family has the same number of brothers as she has sisters,

and each son in your family has twice as many sisters as he has brothers. How many sons and

daughters are in the family?

UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM.

We need to find out how many sons and daughters I have if each girl has an even amount of

sisters as she has brothers, however the sons have two times as much sisters than he has brothers.

DEVISE A PLAN.

To solve this problem I am going to use the “use a variable” strategy along with using algebra. I

first will let X be the number of girls, and Y be the number of boys. Then I will make a system of

equations to solve to get my solution.

CARRY OUT THE PLAN.

X=Number of Girls

Y=Number of Boys

X-1=Y

2(Y-1)=X

I solved the system of equations by elimination. I ended up with Y=3 and X=4

This means that there are 4 girls in the family and 3 boys.

LOOK BACK.

Looking back, I see how algebra can be used to solve everyday problems. I do realize that there

could be other ways to solve this, but I am happy that I choose this one to start with because it

made it really easy to solve once I decided on a plan.