John and Jivanti together have $45$ marbles. Both of them lost $5$ marbles each,and the product of the number of marbles they now have is $124$. Find out how many marbles they had to start with.

Vedclass pdf generator app on play store
Vedclass iOS app on app store
(A) Let the number of John's marbles be $x$.
Therefore,the number of Jivanti's marbles $= 45 - x$.
After losing $5$ marbles each:
Number of John's marbles $= x - 5$.
Number of Jivanti's marbles $= 45 - x - 5 = 40 - x$.
It is given that the product of their remaining marbles is $124$.
So,$(x - 5)(40 - x) = 124$.
Expanding the equation: $40x - x^2 - 200 + 5x = 124$.
Rearranging terms: $-x^2 + 45x - 200 = 124$.
$x^2 - 45x + 324 = 0$.
Factoring the quadratic equation: $x^2 - 36x - 9x + 324 = 0$.
$x(x - 36) - 9(x - 36) = 0$.
$(x - 36)(x - 9) = 0$.
Thus,$x = 36$ or $x = 9$.
If John had $36$ marbles,Jivanti had $45 - 36 = 9$ marbles.
If John had $9$ marbles,Jivanti had $45 - 9 = 36$ marbles.

Explore More

Similar Questions

Find the roots of the following equation:
$x + \frac{1}{x} = 3, x \neq 0$

Find the roots of the following quadratic equation,if they exist,by the method of completing the square: $2x^2 - 7x + 3 = 0$.

The altitude of a right triangle is $7 \, cm$ less than its base. If the hypotenuse is $13 \, cm$,find the other two sides.

Difficult
View Solution

Represent the following situation mathematically:
$A$ cottage industry produces a certain number of toys in a day. The cost of production of each toy (in rupees) was found to be $55$ minus the number of toys produced in a day. On a particular day,the total cost of production was ₹ $750$. We would like to find out the number of toys produced on that day.

$A$ train travels $360\, km$ at a uniform speed. If the speed had been $5\, km/h$ more,it would have taken $1\, hour$ less for the same journey. Find the speed of the train (in $km/h$).

Vedclass Products

For Students

Vedclass Test Series

Mock tests in real JEE/NEET style with performance analysis. 5-day free trial.

Start Free Trial
For Teachers

Exam Paper Generator

Generate Set A/B/C/D exam papers from 7.5L+ questions in 2 minutes. 3 chapters free.

Try Free
For Institutes

Online Exam Module

Live online exams with unlimited students, 360° analytics & white-label branding.

See Demo