Question :
A huge gathering of people decided to have a great picnic. They organized wagons, and each wagon was carrying fixed number of passengers. On the way, 10 wagons broke down and each wagon has to carry one more extra men. On the return trip, 15 more wagons went out of commission so the remaining had to carry three more than in starting journey.
So, how many people attended the great annual picnic?
Solution :
Let w be the number of wagons and p be the people in a single wagon in initial journey.
We know that
wp = (w-10)(p+1) = (w-25)(p+3)
After expanding the brackets, we find p=9. Putting the value of p in equation, we obtain the value of w to be 10. Thus, there were total 10 wagons in the initial journey, each carrying 9 people in it.