College

Choose the mathematical sentence that most accurately expresses the information in the problem, and would be most helpful in solving it.

In a certain herd of 24 elephants, there are 13 males. How many females are there?

A. [tex]\( f - 24 = 13 \)[/tex]
B. [tex]\( f + 13 = 24 \)[/tex]
C. [tex]\( f - 13 = 24 \)[/tex]
D. [tex]\( f + 13 + 24 \)[/tex]
E. [tex]\( f = 24 + 13 \)[/tex]
F. [tex]\( f + 24 = 13 \)[/tex]

Answer :

To solve the problem of finding out how many female elephants are in the herd, we need to set up a mathematical equation based on the information provided.

Here's a step-by-step breakdown:

1. Understand the given information:
- There are 24 elephants in total.
- Out of these, 13 are males.

2. What are we trying to find?
- We need to find the number of female elephants. Let's represent the number of female elephants as [tex]\( f \)[/tex].

3. Set up the equation:
- We have the total number of elephants as the sum of male and female elephants.
- Therefore, the equation that represents this is: [tex]\[ f + 13 = 24 \][/tex]

4. Solve for [tex]\( f \)[/tex]:
- Start with the equation from step 3:
[tex]\[ f + 13 = 24 \][/tex]
- Subtract 13 from both sides to isolate [tex]\( f \)[/tex]:
[tex]\[ f = 24 - 13 \][/tex]
- Calculate the subtraction:
[tex]\[ f = 11 \][/tex]

5. Conclusion:
- There are 11 female elephants in the herd.

The correct mathematical sentence that describes the situation and helps us solve the problem is [tex]\( f + 13 = 24 \)[/tex], which corresponds to choice B.