Question

Pradeep gave away 8 sweets to his friends. This number was one-fifth of the number of sweets that he had with him at first. How many sweets did Pradeep have with him at first?

Answer 1

Hint: Assume that, earlier total number of sweets Pradeep had were $x$. Now, multiply the number of sweets he had given to his friends by the given fraction to obtain the total number of sweets he had at first.

Complete step-by-step answer:

Let us assume that Pradeep had total $x$ sweets at first. He gave 8 sweets to his friends and it is equal to one-fifth of the total sweets earlier. Therefore, writing this situation mathematically, we get,
$\begin{align}
  & 8=\dfrac{x}{5} \\
 & x=8\times 5 \\
 & x=40 \\
\end{align}$
Hence, he had a total of 40 sweets earlier.

Note: Here, we have used linear equations in one variable because there is only one unknown that we have to find and that is, the total number of sweets. If we were given to find some more unknowns then we would have assumed some more variables.