Lee's summer job was to sell newspapers. he sold 24 in the morning. in the afternoon, he sold 2/7 of the remaining newspapers. the number of newspapers left was 1/2 of the number he started with at the beginning. how many newspapers did lee start with?

you! i can't have any equations in the answer!

Given:
x = beginning number of newspapers
24 = sold in the morning
(x - 24) * 2/7 = sold in the afternoon
x * 1/2 = remaining newspapers

5/7 of the remaining newspaper is equal to 1/2 of the original number.

(x - 24) * 5/7 = 1/2 * x 
5x/7 - 120/7 = x/2
5x/7 * 2/2 - 120/7 * 2/2 = x/2 * 7/7
10x/14 - 240/14 = 7x/14
10x/14 - 7x/14 = 240/14
3x/14 = 240/14
14 * 3x/14 = 14 * 240/14
3x = 240
x = 240/3
x = 80

80 - 24 = 56 remaining newspaper in the morning
56 * 2/7 = 16 sold in the afternoon
80 - 24 - 16 = 80/2
40 = 40 remaining newspaper for the day.

1. isolate the variable, in this case, d. subtract 35.5 on both sides of the equation.2. 52 subtracted by 35.5 is 16.53. therefore your answer would be d= 16.5this is the basics of pre algebra, isolating variable through adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, if you have any other questions to ask just comment!