Question

Jermaine has t subway tokens. Karen has 4 more subway tokens than Jermaine. Raul has 5 fewer subway tokens than Jermaine. Which expression represents the ratio of Karen’s tokens to Raul’s tokens

Answer 1

First of all, let's derive all the quantities. We know that Jermaine has $t$ tokes. So, if you have 4 more tokens, it means that you can start from this quantity, and add 4. In formula Karen has

$K = t+4$

tokens.

By the same logic, 5 fewer than a certain quantity means to subtract 5 from that quantity, so Raul has

$R = t-5$

tokens.

Now we're ready to write the ratio between the two numbers: simply put Karen's tokens $K$ at the numerator and Raul's tokens $R$ at the denominator and substitute $K$ and $R$ with the expressions we just found:

$\frac{K}{R} = \frac{t+4}{t-5}$

Obviously, since we don't know the value of $t$, we can't say exactly how many tokens anyone has, or computing the ratio numerically, but only express it in terms of $t$.