ShmoopTube

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A little birdie told us you wanted to solve a shmoopy math problem...

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Jeremy is one year older than twice his brother's age.

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If Jeremy is 17, how old is his brother? And why don't we get to know his name?

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And here are the potential answers...

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First of all, don't get hung up on the fact

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that we don't get to find out Jeremy's brother's name.

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With short problems like this, it's a good idea not to get too attached to the characters.

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OK so what is this question asking?

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It wants us to translate English into...Mathlish.

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So here we go:

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Jeremy equals 1 plus the quantity 2 times his brother's age.

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And we know that Jeremy is 17.

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So we substitute 17 for J and get 17 equals 1 plus 2b.

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Subtract 1 from both sides and we have 16 equals 2b.

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Divide both sides by 2 and we get... 8.

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Answer A.

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Now take a second to say good-bye to Jeremy's brother. You won't be seeing him again.

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