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Help with maths, won't take long, please help :)

Hi guys, got a questions and I thought I had the answer but the mark scheme says it's wrong.

'Jasmin is 13 years old. Her mother tells her 'two years ago, you were less than 1/3 of my age, and in two years time, you will be more than 1/4 of my age. What are the possible ages for her mother?'

I did this by doing:
13-2 is less than 1/3x

and then

13+2 is greater than 1/4x

Simplified this comes down to her mum being between 33 and 60, but this is wrong. Is anyone able to tell me where I'm going wrong? Any help is appreciated:smile:
Original post by jsjsjsjs333
Hi guys, got a questions and I thought I had the answer but the mark scheme says it's wrong.

'Jasmin is 13 years old. Her mother tells her 'two years ago, you were less than 1/3 of my age, and in two years time, you will be more than 1/4 of my age. What are the possible ages for her mother?'

I did this by doing:
13-2 is less than 1/3x

and then

13+2 is greater than 1/4x

Simplified this comes down to her mum being between 33 and 60, but this is wrong. Is anyone able to tell me where I'm going wrong? Any help is appreciated:smile:


What does the mark scheme say? Your reasoning looks to be correct
Original post by maths_student6
What does the mark scheme say? Your reasoning looks to be correct


It says 36-57
Original post by jsjsjsjs333
It says 36-57


Ohh I see, I'm really sorry! Where you (and I) went wrong is that the mother's age 2 years ago is x - 2 and in 2 years time is x + 2 so you should have 11< 1/3(x-2) and 15>1/4(x+2) then you get 35<x<58 so x is 36-57
Original post by maths_student6
Ohh I see, I'm really sorry! Where you (and I) went wrong is that the mother's age 2 years ago is x - 2 and in 2 years time is x + 2 so you should have 11< 1/3(x-2) and 15>1/4(x+2) then you get 35<x<58 so x is 36-57


Oh, thanks so much! That does make sense, couldn't figure out what was going wrong:smile:

Thanks so much:smile:

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